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kp-eb0924-069202-0733m | WRIGHT, Thomas (1810-1877), antiquary, was born at Ludlow, in Shropshire, 21st April 1810, and was descended from a Quaker family formerly living at Bradford, in λ orkshire. He was educated at the old grammar school at Ludlow, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1834. While at Cambridge he contributed to the Gentleman's Magazine and other periodicals, and in 1835 he came to London to devote himself to a literary career. His first separate work was Early English Poetry in Black Letter, with Prefaces and Notes, 1836, 4 vols. 12mo, which was followed during the next forty years by a very extensive series of publications, many of lasting value. He helped to found the British Archaeological Association and the Percy, Camden, and Shakespeare societies. In 1842 he was elected corresponding member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres of Paris, and was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries as well as member of many other learned British and foreign bodies. In 1859 he superintended the excavations of the Roman city of Uriconium, near Shrewsbury, of which he issued a description. He died at Chelsea, 23d December 1877, in his sixty-seventh year. A portrait of him is in the Drawing Room Portrait Gallery for October 1, 1859. His fertility was remarkable, and the list of seventy-eight articles in Allibone’s Dictionary (1871, iii. pp. 2864-67) includes examples of almost every department of literature. He was a great scholar, but will be chiefly remembered as an industrious antiquary and the editor of many relics of the Middle Ages. In the British Museum catalogue are 121 references under his name.
His chief publications are— Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, a Series of Original Letters, 1838, 2 vols.; Reliquiae Antiquae, 1839- 43, again 1845, 2 vols., edited with Mr J. 0. Halliwell-Phillipps; W. Mapes’s Latin Poems, 1841, 4to, Camden Society; Political Ballads and Carols, published by the Percy Society, 1841; Popular Treatises on Science, 1841; History of Ludlow, 1841, &c., again 1852; Collection of Latin Stories, 1842, Percy Society; The Vision and Creed of Piers Ploughman, 1842, 2 vols., 2d ed. 1855; Bio- graphia Literaria, vol i., Anglo-Saxon Period, 1842, vol. ii., Anglo-Norman Period, 1846; The Chester Plays, 1843-47, 2 vols., Shakespeare Society; St Patrick's Purgatory, 1844; Anecdota Literaria, 1844; Archaeological Album, 1845, 4to; Essays connected with England in the Middle Ages, 1846, 2 vols.; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, 1847-51, Percy Society, a new text with notes, reprinted in 1 vol., 1853 and 1867; Early Travels in Palestine, 1848, Bohn’s Antiq. Lib.; England under the House of Hanover, 1848, 2 vols., several editions, reproduced in 1868 as Caricature History of the Georges ; Mapes, Be Nugis Curialium, 1850, 4to, Camden Society; Geoffrey Gaimar’s Metrical Chronicle, 1850, Caxton Society; Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, 1851, 2 vols.; The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, 1852, 4th ed. 1885; History of Fulke Fitz JVarine, 1855; Jo. de Garlandia, Be Triumphis Eeclesiae, 1856, 4to, Roxburghe Club; Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English, 1857; A Volume of Vocabularies, 1857, 2d ed. by R. P. Wülcker, 1884, 2 vols.; Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Paris, 1858, 2 vols.; Malory’s History of King Arthur, 1858, 2 vols., revised 1865; Political Poems and Songs from Edward III. to Richard HL, 1859-61, 2 vols., Rolls Series; Songs and Ballads of the Reign of Philip and Mary, 1860, 4to, Roxburghe Club; Essays on Archaeological Subjects, 1861, 2 vols.; Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England in the Middle Ayes, 1862, 4to, reproduced in 1871 as The Homes of other Bays·, Roll of Arms of Edward I., 1864, 4to; Autobiography of Thomas Wright (1736-97), his grandfather, 1864; History of Caricature, 1865, 4to; Womankind in Western Europe, 1869, 4to; Anglo-Latin Satirical Poets of 12th Cent., 1872, 2 vols., Rolls Series. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 692 [9:24:692] | |
kp-eb0924-069203-0733m | WRIT, in law, is a formal commission from the crown or other supreme executive officer to an inferior executive officer or to a private person, enjoining some act or omission. The word represents the Latin brevis or breve (both forms are found, the latter more commonly), so called, according to Bracton, from its shortly expressing the intention of the framer, “quia breviter et paucis verbis intentionem proferentis exponit.”^[1. It is perhaps doubtful whether intentio is here used in its ordinary sense or in the technical signification which it bore as a part of the Roman formula (see Roman Law, vol. XX. p. 707-8). ] The breve can be traced back as far as the Codex Theodosianus (438 A.D.), where one of its meanings is that of an official report or letter. It bears a similar meaning in some of the capitularies of the Frankish kings. The interdictum of Roman law sometimes represents the writ of English law; e.g., there is considerable likeness between the Roman interdictum de libero homine exhibendo and the English writs of habeas corpus and de homine replegiando. From Roman law the breve passed into the Liber Feudorum and the canon law, in [9:24:693] both in a sense differing from that at present borne by the writ of English law. The breve testatum, of the Liber Feudorum was an instrument in writing made on the land at the time of giving seisin by the lord to the tenant, and attested by the seals of the lord and the pares curiae or other witnesses. In England such witnesses were part of the inquest, and joined in the verdict in case of disputed right until 12 Edw. II. st. 1, c. 2. The breve testatum in England developed into the Feoffment (<∕.u), later into the deed of grant (see Real Estate) ; in Scotland into the charter, and later into the disposition. In canon law breve denoted a letter under the pope’s seal. In old English ecclesiastical law a brief meant letters patent issued out of Chancery to churchwardens or other officers for the collection of money for church purposes. Such briefs were regulated by 4 Anne c. 14, but are now obsolete, although they are still to be found named in one of the rubrics in the communion service of the Book of Common Prayer. In English legal practice brief now denotes the written instructions put into the hands of counsel to form the basis of his case. It was probably so called from its at first being only a copy of the original writ. Such a brief is in Scotland called a memorial.
The writ in English law still occupies a very important position, which can scarcely be understood without a sketch of its history. To a certain extent this history has already been given under Pleading, for the whole theory of pleading depends in the last resort upon the writ. Writ or breve was at first used in a less technical sense than that which it afterwards assumed: thus in the Leges Henrici Primi it simply means a letter from the king, and in the Assize of Clarendon (1166) imbreviari means to be registered. It became formalized by the reign of Henry II., and precedents are given by Glanvill. The writ process was at that date the foundation of all civil justice in the king’s court, and of much in the lower courts, and was a profitable source of revenue to the exchequer. Every writ had to be purchased {breνe perquirere was the technical term). This purchase developed in later times into the payment of a fine to the king where the damages were laid above £40. The usual scale was 6s. 8d. for every 100 marks claimed. In suing out a writ of covenant, the basis of the proceedings in levying a fine (see Entail), the king was entitled to his primer fine, i.e., one-tenth of the annual value of the land concerned. The sale of writs was forbidden by Magna Charta and other statutes in certain cases, especially that of the writ de odio et atia in favour of the liberty of the subject. A solicitor was so called because his original duty was to solicit or sue out a writ and take the due proceedings by paying the proper fine. The costs of a writ purchased were first allowed to a successful demandant by the Statute of Gloucester, 6 Edw. I. c. 1. Through the Norman period the prerogative of issuing writs seems to have been undisputed. Glanvill’s precedents did not exhaust all possible forms, for in the time of Bracton, in the 13th century, it was still possible to frame new writs at the pleasure of the crown. The Provisions of Oxford in 1258 put an end to this by enacting that the chancellor should not seal anything out of course {i.e., any writ for which there was no precedent) by the will of the king, but that he should do it by the council. In 1285 the Statute of Westminster the Second, 13 Edw. I. st. 1, c. 24, re established the power of the crown within certain limits, that is, in causes of action in a similar case falling under the same law {in consimili casu cadente sub eodem jure) as those for which precedents of Writs already existed in the Chancery (see Trespass, Trover). These precedents were at an early date recorded in the Registrum Brevium, called by Sir Edward Coke the oldest book in the common law. Apart from the powers given by the statute, new writs could only be issued by the authority of parliament, and writs are sometimes found set out in statutes, especially in the Statutum Walliae, 12 Edw. I. c. 7, where precedents of the most usual writs will be found. The Statute of Westminster the Second itself contained precedents of the writ of formedon and of many others. The original flexibility of the writ was thus limited within comparatively narrow bounds. The right to the issue of the writ determined the right of action. So essential was the writ that it was a legal axiom in Bracton that no one could sue at law without a writ, and it was called by Coke, in his introduction to Littleton, “the heartstrings of the common law.” As such it occupied an important place in some of the leading statutes dealing with constitutional rights. The Statute of Marlbridge, 52 Hen. III. c. 22, forbade a lord to distrain his freeholders to answer for their freeholds, or for anything touching their freeholds, without the king’s writ. By 25 Edw. III. st. 5, c. 4, it was accorded, asserted, and stablished that none should be taken by petition or suggestion made to the king or his council unless by indictment or presentment in due manner or by process made by writ original at the common law. 42 Edw. III. c. 3 provided that no man should be put to answer without presentment before justices, or matter of record, or by due process and writ original according to the old law of the land. Both these statutes were recited and the general principle confirmed by 16 Car. I. c. 10. Uniformity of procedure was secured by 27 Hen. VIII. c. 24, by which all writs were to be in the king’s name in a county palatine or liberty, but tested by those who had the county palatine or liberty. It was not until 1731 that, by virtue of 4 Geo. II. c. 26, writs were framed in the English language. They had previously been in Latin; this accounts for the Latin names by which a large number are still known. The writ was issued from the common law side of the Chancery, and was in the special charge of the manager and petty bag offices. Though issuing from the king’s Chancery, it did not necessarily direct the trial of the question in the king’s court. In whatever court it was returnable, it called in the aid of the sheriff as executive officer. It was either addressed to him or, if addressed to the party alleged to be in default, it concluded with a threat of constraint by the sheriff in the event of disobedience, generally in those terms, “et, nisi feceris, vicecomes de N. faciat ne amplius clamorem audiam pro defectu justitiae.” If the writ was returnable in the county court or the lord’s court, the sheriff or the lord sat as the deputy of the king, not by virtue of his inherent jurisdiction. The writ was not necessary for the initiation of proceedings in these courts or before the justices in eyre (who sat as judges of the county court),^[2. The distinction between the royal and local courts was not perhaps at all times very strictly drawn. Thus in the Leges Ηenriei Primi, c. 31, the county court is called curia regis. ] but a custom seems to have grown up of suing out a writ from the king where the claim was above 40s. Cases were transferred from the lord’s court to the county court by writ of tolt (so called because it removed, tollit, the case), from the latter to the king’s court by writ of pone (so called from its first word). By Magna Charta the power of bringing a suit in the king’s court in the first instance by writ of praecipe was taken away, and the writ was thenceforth only returnable in the king’s court where the tenant held of the king ⅛ capite, or where the lord had no court or abandoned his right. Hence it became a common form in the writ of right to allege that the lord had renounced his court {dominus remisit curiam) so as to secure trial in the king’s court. Besides being used for the trial of disputes, writs addressed to sheriffs, mayors, commissioners, or others were in constant use for financial [9:24:694] and political purposes, e.g., for the collection of fifteenths, scutage, tallage, àc., for summons to the council and later to parliament, and for recalling a parliament, the last by means of the rarely occurring writ de revocatione parliamenti.
There were several divisions of writs (excluding those purely financial and political), the most important being that into original and judicial, the former (tested in the name of the king) issued to bring a suit before the proper court, the latter (tested in the name of a judge) issued during the progress of a suit or to enforce judgment. Original were either optional, i.e., giving an option of doing a certain act or of showing cause why it was not done, beginning with the words praecipe quod reddat, the principal example being the writ on which proceedings in a common recovery (see Entail) were based, or peremptory, i.e., calling on a person to do a certain act, beginning with the words si A fecerit te securum. Original were also either de cursu or magistralia, the former those fixed in form and depending on precedent, the latter those framed by the masters in Chancery under the powers of the Statute of Westminster the Second. They were also either general or special, the latter setting forth the grounds of the demand with greater particularity than the former. By 5 Geo. II. c. 27 special writs were confined to causes of action amounting to £10 or upwards. There was also a division of writs into writs of right (ex debito justitiae), such as habeas corpus, and prerogative writs (ex gratia), such as mandamus (see Prerogative). Coke and other authorities mention numerous other divisions, but those which have been named appear to be the principal.
The most interesting form of writ from the historical point of view was the writ of right (breve de recto), called by Blackstone “the highest writ in the law,” used at first for debt and other personal claims, afterwards confined to the recovery of real estate as the writ of right par excellence. It was so called from the words plenum rectum contained in it, and was the remedy for obtaining justice for ouster from or privation of the freehold. By it property as well as possession could be recovered. It generally lay in the king’s court, as has been said, by virtue of a fictitious allegation. In that case it was addressed to the sheriff and was called a writ of right close. It was also a writ of right close where the lands in dispute were held in antient demesne. When addressed to the lord and tried in his court, it was generally a writ of right patent. After the appearance of the tenant the demandant in a writ of right counted, that is, claimed against the tenant according to the writ, but in more precise terms, the writ being as it were the embryo of the future count. The trial was originally by battle (see Trial), but in the reign of Henry II. an alternative procedure was introduced, interesting as the earliest example of the substitution of something like the Jury (q.v.) system for the judicial combat. A writ de magna assisa eligenda was directed to the sheriff commanding him to return four knights of the county and vicinage to the court, there to return twelve other knights of the vicinage to try upon oath the question contained in the writ of right (technically called the mise). This mode of trial was known as trial by the grand assize. Generally the whole of the sixteen knights were sworn, though twelve was a sufficient number. The last occasion of trial by the grand assize was in 1835. But long before that date possessory had from their greater convenience tended to supersede proprietary remedies, and in most cases the title was sufficiently determined by the assizes of other kinds, especially that of novel disseisin and later by proceedings in ejectment (see Possession). The oath of the champion on proceedings in a writ of right where the alternative of the judicial combat was accepted was regulated by statute, 3 Edw. I. c. 4L The writ of right is also interesting as being the basis of the law of Limitation (q.v.). By the Statute of Merton, 20 Hen. III. c. 8, no seisin could be alleged by the demandant but from the time of Henry II. By 3 Edw. I. c. 39 the time was fixed at the reign of Richard I., by 32 Hen. VIII. c. 2 at sixty years at the most. There were other writs of right with special names, e.g., the writ of right by the custom of London for land in London, the writ of right of advowson, brought by the patron to recover his right of presentation to a benefice, and the writs of right of dower and de rationabili parte, the latter brought by coparceners or brothers in gavelkind. There were also writs in the nature of a writ of right, e.g., formedon, brought by a reversioner on discontinuance by a tenant in tail and given by the Statute De Donis (see Entail) ; escheat, brought by the lord where the tenant died without an heir; ne injuste vexes, to prohibit the lord from exacting services or rents beyond his due; de nativo habendo, to recover the inheritance in a villein; and the little writ of right close according to the custom of the manor, to try in the lord’s court the right of the king’s tenants in antient demesne.
Up to 1832 an action was (except as against certain privileged persons, such as attorneys) commenced by original writ, and writ practically became the equivalent of action, and is so used in old books of practice, such as Booth on Real Actions. The law was gradually altered by legislation and still more by the introduction of fictitious proceedings in the common law courts, to be described later, by which the issue of the original writ was suspended, except in real actions, which were of comparatively rare occurrence. The original writ is no longer in use in civil procedure, an action being now in all cases commenced by the writ of summons, a judicial writ, a procedure first introduced in 1832 by 2 Will. IV. c. 39. In the following year an immense number of the old writs were abolished by 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 27. An exception was made in favour of the writ of right of dower, writ of dower unde nihil habet, Quare Impedit (q.v.), and Ejectment (q.v.), and of the plaints for free bench and dower in the nature of writs of right. Ejectment was remodelled by the Common Law Procedure Act, 1852; the other writs and plaints remained up to the Common Law Procedure Act, 1860, by which they were abolished. Other writs which have been superseded by simpler proceedings, generally by ordinary actions, are those of the four assizes of novel disseisin, juris utrum, mort Tauncester, and darrein presentment (see Assize), estrepement and waste (see Waste), monstrans de droit (see Petition), Nuisance (q.v.), Partition (q.v.), praemunire (see Treason), Quo Warranto (q.v.), Scire Facias (q.v.), subpoena (see Trust), and warraηtia chartae (see Warranty). The number of writs was so large that any exhaustive list of them is almost impossible, but a few of those of more special interest which have become obsolete may be shortly mentioned. Admeηsuratio lay against persons usurping more than their share of property. It was either dotis or pasturae, the latter, like the Scotch “souming and rouming,” being the remedy for surcharge of common. Alias and pluries writs were issued when a previous writ had been disobeyed. Attaint lay to inquire by a jury of twenty-four whether a jury of twelve had given a false verdict. It was superseded in the 16th century by the practice of setting aside a verdict or granting a new trial, and was finally abolished by 6 Geo. IV. c. 50. Audita querela was a means of relieving a defendant by a matter of discharge occurring after judgment. After having been long practically superseded by stay of execution it was finally abolished by the rules made under the Judicature [9:24:695] Act, 1875. Capias, latitat, and quominus are interesting as showing the extraordinary mass of fictitious allegation in the old procedure of the common law courts before 1832. By capias ad respondendum followed by alias and pluries the Court of Common Pleas was enabled to take cognizance of an action without the actual issue of an original writ. The capias was a judicial writ issued to follow an original writ of trespass quia clausum fregit. The issue of the original writ and after a time the issue of the capias became mere fictions, and proceedings commenced with the issue of another writ called capias testatum. On return of the writ the plaintiff elected to proceed with a cause of action other than trespass, and the real merits of the case were eventually reached in this tortuous manner. After being served with the capias the defendant was bound to put in common or special bail, the former being sufficient in all but exceptional cases. Here again there was a fiction, for his common bail were John Doe and Richard Roe. The same fictitious pair also appeared on the side of the plaintiff as his pledges for the due prosecution of his action. By latitat and quominus the Courts of King’s Bench and Exchequer respectively assumed jurisdiction by a further series of fictions over ordinary civil actions. The writ of latitat, following the bill of Middlesex, itself in later times generally a fiction, alleged that the defendant was in hiding out of Middlesex, after committing a trespass quia clausum, fregit, for which he was in the custody of the king’s marshal in the Marshalsea prison. The real cause of action was then stated in what was called the αc etiam clause. Writs filed in the King’s Bench and Common Pleas were in the custody of an officer of each court called the custos brevium. The writ of quominus alleged that the plaintiff was the king’s debtor and that through the defendant’s default he was unable to discharge the debt. Deceit or disceit lay for the redress of anything done deceitfully in the name of another, but was especially used to reverse a judgment in a real action obtained by collusion. Distraint of knighthood was a mode of obtaining money for the crown by the exercise of the prerogative of forcing every one who held a knight’s fee under the crown to be knighted or to pay a fine. The earliest extant writ was issued in 1278. It was abolished by 16 Car. L c. 20. Entry was a possessory remedy against one alleged to hold land unlawfully. It was divided into a large number of kinds, and was the subject of much of the old real property learning. The ones most commonly occurring were the writs of entry in the per and in the post, the former alleging, the latter not, the title of the heir from the original disseisor. When writ had come to be equivalent in meaning to action, one of the divisions of possessory actions was into writs of entry and writs of assize. A special writ of entry for dower was given by 6 Edw. I. c. 7. Excommunicato capiendo was the authority for arresting an excommunicated person and detaining him until he was reconciled to the church, when he was liberated by the writ de excommunicato deliberando. These proceedings were abolished and the writ de contumace capiendo substituted by 57 Geo. III. c. 127 (see Excommunication). Haeretico comburendo was issued on certificate of conviction for heresy by the ecclesiastical court. A case of burning two Arians under this writ occurred as lately as the reign of James I. It was abolished by 29 Car. II. c. 9. Homine replegiando, mainprize, and odio et atia (or bono et malo) were all ancient means of securing the liberty of the subject, long superseded by the more effective procedure of habeas corpus. The last of the three enjoined the sheriff to inquire whether a committal on suspicion of murder was on just cause or from malice and ill-will. It was regulated by Magna Charta and the Statute of Westminster the Second, but, having been abused to the advantage of sheriffs, it was taken away by 28 Edw. III. c. 9. Nisi prius was given by the Statute of Westminster the Second, 13 Edw. I. c. 30. Its place is now taken by the commission of Nisi Prius {q.v.). Orando pro rege et regno, before the present Book of Common Prayer, enjoined public prayers for the high court of parliament. Privilege commanded the release of a prisoner entitled to privilege of parliament. Protection was given for enabling a man to be quit of suits brought against him while absent beyond seas. It was dealt with by a large number of old statutes, but none has been issued since 1692. Rebellion was a means of enforcing obedience to the process of the Court of Chancery. In modern procedure attachment takes its place. Rege inconsulto commanded judges of a court not to proceed in a case which might prejudice the king until his pleasure should be known. Replevin was a survival of the most archaic law. The procedure consisted of writ on writ to an almost unlimited extent. It originally began by the issue of a writ of replevin or replegiarifacias. The case might be removed from the county court to a superior court by writ of recordari facias loquelam. If the distrainor claimed a property in the goods distrained, the question of property or no property was determined by a writ de proprietate probanda, and, if decided in favour of the distrainor, the distress was to be returned to him by writ de retomo habendo. If the goods were removed or concealed, a writ of capias in withernam enabled the sheriff, after due issue of alias and pluries writs, to take a second distress in place of the one removed. It is said that the question whether goods taken in ινithernam could be replevied was the only one which the Admirable Crichton found himself unable to answer. For the modern practice, see Distress, Replevin. Restitutione extracti ab ecclesia lay for restoring a man to a sanctuary from which he had been wrongfully taken (see Sanctuary). Secta lay for enforcing the duties of tenants to their lord’s court, e.g., secta ad molendinum, where the tenants were bound to have their corn ground at the lord’s mill. Seisina habenda allowed delivery of lands of a felon to the lord after the king had had his year, day, and waste (see Waste). Vi laica removenda is curiously illustrative of ancient manners. It lay where two parsons contended for a church, and one of them entered with a great number of laymen and kept out the other by force. As lately as 1867 an application for the issue of the writ was made to the Chancery Court of the Bermuda Islands, but refused on the ground that the writ was obsolete, and that the same relief could be obtained by injunction. On appeal this refusal was sustained by the privy council.
Of writs now in use, other than those for elections, all are judicial, or part of the Process (q.v. )^[3. It may be noticed that by the interpretation clause of the Sheriffs Act, 1887, the expression “writ” includes any process. ] of the court, except perhaps the writ of error in criminal cases. They are to be hereafter issued out of the central office of the Supreme Court, or the office of the clerk of the crown in Chancery, provision having been made by the Great Seal (Officers) Act, 1874, and the Judicature (Officers) Act, 1879, for the transfer on the next vacancy of the duties of the clerk of the petty bag to those officers. By the latter Act the record and writ clerks, previously officers of the Chancery Division, were abolished. By 40 and 41 Vict. c. 41 the wafer great seal or the wafer privy seal may be attached to writs instead of the impression of the great or privy seal. The judicial writs issue chiefly, if not entirely, from the central office, with which tlíe old crown office was incorporated by the Act of 1879. The crown office had charge of writs occurring in crown practice, such as quo warranto and certiorari.
In local civil courts, other than county courts, writs are usually issued out of the office of the registrar, or an officer of similar jurisdiction. By 35 and 36 Vict. c. 86 writs of execution from such courts for sums under £20 may be stamped or sealed as of course by the registrar of a county court, and executed as if they had issued from the county court. In county court practice the [9:24:696] Warrant (q.v.) corresponds generally to the writ of the Supreme Court. Most of the present law on the subject of writs is contained in the Rules of the Supreme Court, 1883, Ord. xlii.-xliv., and in the Crown Office Rules, 1886. Both sets of rules contain numerous precedents in their schedules. By Ord. ii. r. 8 of the rules of 1883 all writs (with certain exceptions) are to be tested in the name of the lord chancellor, or, if that office be vacant, in the name of the lord chief justice. The main exceptions are those which occur in crown practice, which are tested by the lord chief justice. The writ of error bears the tests of the king or queen, “witness ourselves.” Before the issue of most writs a praecipe, or authority to the proper offices to issue the writ, is necessary. This is of course not to be confounded with the old original writ of praecipe. Writs affecting land must generally be registered in order to bind the land (see Registration). A writ cannot as a rule be served on Sunday (see Sunday). Some of the more important modern writs (other than those of an extrajudicial nature) may be shortly noticed. Habeas Corpus, Mandamus, and Prohibition (yg ’.u.) have been already treated. Writs are generally, unless where the contrary is stated, addressed to the sheriff. Abatement or nocumento amovendo enjoins the removal of a nuisance iu pursuance of a judgment to that effect. Ad quod damnum is for the purpose of inquiring whether a proposed crown grant will be to the damage of the crown or others. It is still in use, and recent examples will be found in the London Gazette. If the inquiry be determined in favour of the subject, a reasonable fine is payable to the exchequer by 27 Edw. I. st. 2. Attachment is issued as a means of supporting the dignity of the court by punishment for contempt of its orders (see Contempt of Court). Since the Judicature Acts a uniform practice has been followed in all the branches of the High Court, and a writ of attachment can now only be issued by leave of the court or a judge after notice to the party against whom it is to be issued. Capias : the old writs of capias ad satisfaciendum and capias utligatum may still bo used, but their importance has been much diminished since the alterations made in the law by the Debtors Act, 1869, and the abolition of civil outlawry (see Outlaw). Certiorari is a writ in very frequent use, by which the proceedings of an inferior court are brought up for review by the High Court. In general it lies for excess of jurisdiction as mandamus does for defect. The Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, makes the writ no longer necessary where a special case has been stated by a court of quarter sessions. Delivery enforces a judgment for the delivery of property without giving the defendant (unless at the option of the plaintiff) power to retain it on payment of the assessed value. Distringas lay to distrain a person for a crown debt or for his appearance on a certain day. Its operation has been much curtailed by the substitution of other proceedings by 28 and 29 Vict. c. 104, and the rules of the Supreme Court. It now seems to lie only against inhabitants for non-repair of a highway. Distringas nuper vicecomitem is a writ calling on an ex-sheriff to account for the proceeds of goods taken in execution. Elegit is founded on the Statute of Westminster the Second, and is so named from the words of the writ, that the plaintiff has chosen (elegit) this particular mode of satisfaction. It originally ordered the sheriff to seize a moiety of the debtor’s land and all his goods, save his oxen and beasts of the plough. By 1 and 2 Vict. c. 110 the elegit was extended to include the whole of the lands, and copyholds as well as freeholds. By the Bankruptcy Act, 1883, an elegit no longer applies to goods. Error, the only example of an original writ remaining, was at one time largely used in both civil and criminal proceedings. It was abolished in civil procedure by the Common Law Procedure Act, 1852, and proceedings in error by the rules made under the Judicature Act, 1875. A writ of error to the Queen’s Bench Division still lies in criminal cases, though it is rarely brought, for it only lies for mistakes appearing on the record, and recent legislation has given large powers of amending such mistakes. The fiat of the attorney-general is necessary before it can be sued out. Exigent (with proclamation) forms ?art of the process of outlawry now existing only against a criminal.
t depends on several statutes, commencing in 1344, and is specially mentioned in the Statute of Provisors of Edward III., 25 Edw. III. st. 6. Extent is the writ of execution issued by the crown for a crown debt of record. The sale of chattels seized under an extent takes place under a writ of venditioni exponas. A crown debtor is entitled to an extent in aid against a person indebted to him. Where a crown debtor has died a writ reciting his death, and so called diem clausit extremum, issues against his property. Fieri facias is.the ordinary writ of execution on a judgment commanding the sheriff to levy the sum, interest, and costs on the personal property of the party. Where the sheriff has not sold the goods, venditioni exponas issues to compel him to do so. Where the party is a beneficed clergyman, the writ is one of fieri facias de bonis ecclesiasticis or of sequestrari facias (addressed to the bishop). The latter writ also issues in other cases of an exceptional nature, as against a corporation and to seize a pension. It is addressed to commissioners, not to the sheriff. Habere facias possessionem is given to the owner of a tithe or rent charge, enabling him to have possession of the lands chargeable therewith until arrears due to him are paid (see Tithes). Indicavit is still nominally grantable under the Statute De Conjunctim Fcoffatis of 34 Edw. I., and is a particular kind of prohibition granted to the patron of an advowson. Inquiry issues for the assessment of damages by the sheriff or his deputy. It represents to some extent the old writ of justicies, and the later writ of trial allowed by 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 42, but is narrower in its operation, for under the last-named writs the whole case or issues under it could be tried. Before an inquiry the liability has been already established. Levari facias is the means of levying execution for forfeited recognizances (see Recognizanct). The Bankruptcy Act, 1883, abolished it in civil proceedings. Ne exeat regno was at one time issued by virtue of the prerogative to prevent any person from leaving the realm, a form of restraint of liberty recognized by parliament in 5 Rie. II. c. 2. It has now become a means of preventing a debtor from quitting the kingdom, and so withdrawing himself from the jurisdiction of the court with out giving security for the debt. There is some doubt whether it has not been impliedly superseded by the powers given by Ord. lxix. of the Rules of the Supreme Court. Non omittas is for executing process by the sheriff in a liberty or franchise, where the proper officer has neglected to do so. It rested originally chiefly upon the Statute of Westminster the Second, c. 39, and is now regulated by the Sheriffs Act, 1887, which repeals the previous enactment. Possession (also called assistance) enjoins the sheriff to give possession of land to the party entitled thereto under a judgment for such possession. In admiralty, where the judgment is for possession of a ship, the writ is addressed to the marshal. Procedendo is the converse of prohibition. It directs the lower court to proceed with the case. It also lies to restore the authority of commissioners suspended by supersedeas. Restitution restores property, either real or personal, after the right to it has been judicially declared. Thus it lies on behalf of the owner of real property under the statutes of forcible entry and of personal property under the Larceny Act, 1861. Significavit, once a writ, appears since 57 Geo. III. c. 127 to be merely a notice. It is a part of the proceedings against a person disobeying the order of an ecclesiastical court, and consists in a notification to the crown in Chancery of the disobedience. Thereupon a writ de contumace capiendo issues for his arrest. On his subsequent obedience or satisfaction, a writ of deliverance is granted. Precedents of these writs are given in the Act named. Subpaena is the ordinary means of securing the presence of a witness in court, and is addressed to the person whose attendance is required. It is so called from its containing the words “and this you are not to omit under the penalty of £100,” &c. The subpaena may be either ad testificandum, to give evidence, or duces tecum, to produce documents, &c., or both combined. By special order of a judge under 17 and 18 Vict. c. 23 a subpaena may be issued from any court in England, Scotland, or Ireland to compel the attendance of a witness out of the juris» diction. Summons is the universal means of commencing an action in the High Court. It is addressed to the defendant, and may be either generally or specially indorsed with a statement of the nature of the claim made. The latter form of indorsement is allowed in certain cases of debt or liquidated demand, and gives the plaintiff the great advantage of entitling him to final judgment in default of appearance by the defendant, and even in spite of appearance unless the defendant can satisfy a judge that he has a defence or ought to be allowed to defend. No statement of claim is necessary in case of a specially indorsed writ, the indorsement being deemed to be the statement. The writ may be issued out of the central office or out of a district registry, and the plaintiff may name on his writ the division of the High Court in which he proposes to have the case tried. There are special rules governing the issue of writs in probate and admiralty actions. The writ remains in force for twelve months, but may be renewed for good cause after the expiration of that time. Service must be personal, unless where substituted service is allowed, and in special cases, such as actions to recover land and admiralty actions. Service out of the jurisdiction of a writ or notice of a writ is allowed only by leave of the court or a judge. Notice of the issue of a writ, and not the writ itself, is served on a defendant who is neither a British subject nor in British dominions. The law is contained in the Rules of the Supreme Court, especially Ord. ii,-xi. and xiv. Supersedeas commands the stay of proceedings on another writ. It is often combined with procedendo, where on a certiorari the High Court has decided in favour of the jurisdiction of the inferior court. It is also used for removing from the commission of the peace, and for putting an end to the authority of, any persons acting under commission from the crown. Venire facias is the first proceeding in outlawry, calling upon the party to appear. Under the old practice a venire facias de novo was the means of obtaining a new trial. Ventre inspiciendo appears still to be competent, and is a curious relic of antiquity. It issues on the application of an heir presumptive in order to determine by a jury of matrons whether the widow of a deceased owner of lands be with child or not. Almost exactly the same proceeding was known in Roman law under the name of interdictum de inspiciendo ventre, the praetor sending five women to make a report.
[9:24:697]
The principal writs of a non-judicial nature relate to parliament or some of its constituent elements. Parliament is summoned by the king’s writ issued out of Chancery by advice of the privy council. The period of forty days once necessary between the writ and the assembling is now by 15 and 16 Vict. c. 23 reduced to thirty-five days. Writs of summons are issued to the lords spiritual and temporal before every new parliament. Those to Irish representative peers are regulated by the Act of Union, those to archbishops and bishops by 10 and 11 Vict. c. 108. New peerages are no longer created by writ, but the eldest son of a peer is occasionally summoned to the House of Lords in the name of a barony of his father’s. Earl Percy, the eldest son of the duke of Northumberland, was so summoned in 1887, and sits as Baron Lovaine (see Peerage). With respect to election of members of the House of Commons, the procedure differs as the election takes place after a dissolution or on a casual vacancy. After a dissolution the writ is issued, as already stated, by order of the crown in council. For a single election the warrant for a new writ is issued during the session by the speaker after an order of the house made upon motion; during the recess by the speaker’s authority alone, under the powers given by 24 Geo. III. sess. 2, c. 26, 21 and 22 Vict. c. 110, and 26 Vict. c. 20. The warrant is addressed to the clerk of the crown in Chancery for Great Britain, to the clerk of the crown and hanaper of Ireland. A supersedeas to a writ has sometimes been ordered where the writ was improvidently issued. The time allowed to elapse between the receipt of the writ and the election is fixed by the Ballot Act, 1872, sched. 1, at nine days for a county or a district borough, four days for any other borough. The writ is to be returned by the returning officer to the clerk of the crown with the name of the member elected endorsed on the writ. Sched. 2 gives a form of the writ, which is tested, like the writ of error, by the queen herself. The returning officer is the sheriff in counties and counties of cities (such as Chester), generally the mayor in cities and boroughs, and the vice-chancellor in universities (see Parliament). Other writs for election are those for Convocation (q.v.), which is by 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19 summoned by the archbishop of the province on receipt of the king’s writ, and for election of coroners, verderers of royal forests, and some other officers whose office is of great antiquity. The writ de coronatore eligendo, addressed to the sheriff, is specially preserved by the Coroners Act, 1887.
Offences relating to writs are dealt with by the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts of 1861; larceny by 24 and 25 Vict. c. 96, s. 30; forgery by 24 and 25 Vict. c. 98, s. 27. The maximum penalty is seven years’ penal servitude.
Scotland.— Writ is a more extensive term than in England. Writs are either judicial or extrajudicial, the latter including deeds and other instruments,—as, for instance, in 42 and 43 Vict. c. 44, and in the common use of the phrase “oath or writ” as a means of proof. In the narrower English sense both “writ” and “brieve” are used. The brieve was as indispensable a part of the old procedure as it was in England, and many forms are given in Regiam Majestatem and Quoniam Attachiamenta. It was a command issued in the king’s name, addressed to a judge, and ordering trial of a question stated therein. Its conclusion was the will of the summons (see Will, Summons). In some cases proceedings which were by writ in England took another form in Scotland. For instance, the writ of attaint was not known in Scotland, but a similar end was reached by trial of the jury for wilful error.^[4. An example occurring in the reign of James VI. will be found in Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, vol. i. p. 216. ] The English writ of ηe exeat regno is represented by the meditatio fugae warrant. Most proceedings by brieve, being addressed to the sheriff, became obsolete after the institution of the Court of Session, when the sheriffs lost much of that judicial power which they had. enjoyed to a greater extent than the English sheriff (see Sheriff). The executive functions of the English sheriff are performed by the messengers-at-arms. An English writ of execution is represented in Scotland by diligence, chiefly by means by warrants to messengers-at-arms under the authority of signet letters in the name of the king. The brieve, however, has not wholly disappeared. Brieves of tutory, terce, and division are still competent, but not in use. Other kinds of brieve have been superseded by simpler procedure, e.g., the brieve of service of heirs by 10 and 11 Vict. c. 47, for which a petition to the sheriff was substituted by that Act and 31 and 32 Vict. c. 101. The brieve of cognition of insane persons is now the only one of practical importance. The old brieves of furiosity and idiotey were abolished, and this new form was introduced by the Act last named. Writs eo nomine have been the subject of much recent legislation. The writs of capias, habeas, certiorari, and extent were replaced by other proceedings by 19 and 20 Vict. c. 56. The writ of clare constat was introduced by 21 and 22 Vict. c. 76. It and the writs of resignation and confirmation (whether granted by the crown or a subject superior) were regulated by 31 and 32 Vict. c. 101. By the same Act crown writs are to be in the English language, and registered in the regis ter of crown writs. They need not be sealed unless at the instance of the party against whom they are issued. Writs of progress (except crown writs, writs of clare constat, and writs of acknowledgment) were abolished by 37 and 38 Vict. c. 94. The clare constat writ is one granted by the crown or a subject superior for the purpose of completing title of a vassal’s heirs to lands held by the deceased vassal. Where the lands are leasehold the writ of acknowledgment under 20 and 21 Vict. c. 26 is used for the same purpose. By 40 and 41 Vict. c. 40 the form of warrant of execution on certain extracts of registered writs is amended. Extracts of registered writs are to be equivalent to the registered writs themselves. Writs registered in the register of sasines for preservation only may afterwards be registered for preservation and execution. By 22 Geo. II. c. 48, passed for the purpose of assimilating the practice of outlawry for treason in Scotland to that in use in England, the court before which an indictment for treason or misprision of treason is found, is entitled on proper cause to issue writs of capias, proclamation, and exigent. Many writs are by the Stamp Act, 1870, chargeable with a duty of five shillings. In some respects the proceedings in parliamentary elections differ from those in use in England. Thus the writ in university elections is directed to the vice-chancellors of Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively, but not to those of St Andrews and Aberdeen, and there is an extension of the time for the return in electionsr for Orkney and Shetland, and for the Wick burghs. Representative peers of Scotland were by the Act of Union to be elected after writ issued to the privy council of Scotland. On the abolition of the privy council a proclamation under the great seal was substituted by 6 Anne, c. 23.
United States.— Writs in United States courts are by Act of Congress to be tested in the name of the chief justice of the United States. By State laws writs are generally bound to be in the name of the people of the State, in the English language, and tested in the name of a judge. Writs of error have been the subject of much legislation by the United States and by the States. In New York writs of error and of ne exeat have been abolished. Writs as parts of real actions have been generally superseded, but in Massachusetts a writ of entry on disseisin is still a mode of trying title. Writs of dower and of estrepement are still in use in some States. By the law of some States, e.g., New Jersey, writs of election are issued to supply casually occurring vacancies in the legislature.
Authorities.— The importance of the wτlt in procedure led to the compilation of a great body of law and precedent at an early date. In addition to the Registrurn Brevium there were, among other old works, the Nαturα Brevium, first published in 1525; Tħeloall, Le Digest des Briefes originales (1579); Fitzherbert, Le Nouvel Natura Brevium (1588); Officina Brevium (1679). See too Coke upon Littleton, 158, 159, 2 Coke’s Institutes, 39. Many precedents will also be found in the collection of Parliamentary writs and in Stubbs’s Select Charters, old books of practice, such as Tidd’s Practice, Corner’s Crown Practice, and Booth On Real Actions, contained much law on the subject. For the history Spence’s Equitable Jurisdiction, vol. i. bk. ii. ch. vlii., Forsyth’s Hist, of Trial by Jury, Stephen on Pleading, and Bigelow’s Hist, of Procedure, ch. iv., may be consulted. There appears to be no book dealing with the writ in modern practice, but sufficient information is contained in the ordinary treatises on procedure. (J. Wf.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 692 [9:24:692] | |
kp-eb0924-069701-0738m | WRITING MACHINES. Machines and appliances of various kinds are in common use to facilitate the process of writing, and to produce copies of writings already made with the pen. Such facsimile writings are obtained by numerous devices, all of which, however, come under the heads (1) of manifolding, (2) of processes analogous in principle to lithography, and (3) of stencilling. The simplest form of manifold writing is by sheets of paper prepared with lamp-black being interleaved between the sheets of white paper on which the impressions are to be taken, and writing over the whole with a style or other sharp-pointed instrument. By this means a considerable number of copies can be made at one time, and the method is in general use among newspaper writers and telegraphists in the production of what is technically known as “flimsy,” where several copies of the same matter are required. Of processes analogous to lithography, the best known is the “hektograph” method, in which the writing is done in the first instance on paper with aniline ink, and then a transfer is made to a gelatine composition which gives off a considerable number of impressions. In principle the autocopyist is like the hektograph, but in this apparatus the writing is done with a special ink, which is transferred to a prepared and properly stretched sheet of parchment. From this parchment copies are obtained precisely as from a lithographic stone on which a transfer has been impressed. Of the apparatus worked in the stencil method, the cyclostyle has been most extensively [9:24:698] adopted. This machine consists of a frame of sufficient size containing a plate of tin on which the paper from which the impression is to be taken is rested. The paper is prepared in a particular way, and the “pen” with which the writing is done consists of an ordinary wooden holder, at the end of which is fixed on a pivot a minute wheel. The edge of the wheel is studded with fine points, which, as it revolves and turns in the direction of the writing, pierce the paper, thus making a perfect stencil. The ink is passed over the top of this stencil by means of a roller, and the impression is left on a sheet of ordinary paper placed beneath.^[1. The trypograph is also a stencil-using device, in which a simple style is used for writing, but the paper is stretched over a fine and sharply corrugated metallic plate which punctures the paper as the style passes over it. ]
The principal substitute for the pen, however, is the machine now generally known as the type-writer, which in its present form dates only from 1873, but it has within that time come into extensive use, especially in America, the country of its origin. Numerous attempts to produce type-writing machines had been previously made both in England and America. So long ago as 1714 one Henry Mill took out a patent for a machine which he described as “an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters, singly or progressively, one after another as in writing, whereby all writings whatsoever may be engrossed in paper or parchment so neat and exact as not to be distinguished from print”; but his instrument is said to have been clumsy and useless, and led to no practical result. In 1867 the idea was taken up by Messrs C. Latham Sholes and Samuel W. Soulé, printers in Milwaukee, and Mr Carlos Glidden, and, after many experiments and failures, a practical working machine was elaborated in 1873, which, being originally made by Messrs E. Remington and Sons, of Ilion, N.Y., is known as the Remington standard type-writer. The success of this machine has induced many inventors to enter the field, and now three principal classes of type-writers are more or less in use. These are (1) type-bar machines, (2) cylinder machines, and (3) wheel machines. The Remington is the type and original of all type-bar machines, which are so called because the steel types are fixed at the extremity of a bar or rod of iron. These bars are in the Remington arranged in a circle around a common centre, and by striking the key of any particular letter, a lever is moved which raises the type-bar, and causes the type at its point to strike on an inked ribbon, and impresses the letter on the paper, which lies against an india-rubber roller. The type-bars are so hinged that all the types as they are struck hit precisely the same spot, so that were the paper to remain stationary the impressions of all the types struck would be superimposed on each other; but, by an automatic mechanism, the cylinder with the paper moves a space to the left after the impression of each type, and the depression of a wooden bar similarly moves the cylinder a space after each word without impressing any sign. In the recent forms of the Remington machine, each type bar carries two types, capital and lower case, or other duplicate signs, the one a little behind the other, and when a capital letter is to be printed the depression of a key shifts the position of the cylinder so as to bring the second type in contact with the ink ribbon. In this way from one set of keys two sets of type can be with facility acted upon. With practice, an average writing speed of forty words per minute can easily be attained on the Remington type-writer, and very expert writers have been able to keep up a speed of from sixty to seventy words for a short time. It is safe to say that type-writing can be ordinarily done at about three times the speed of ordinary handwriting. In the cylindrical machines the letters and signs are all upon a cylinder or “sleeve,” and the striking of a key produces a combined lateral and rotary motion for bringing the proper type to the common printing point. Thus, for every separate impression the entire cylinder has ordinarily to make two movements of variable length, and the instrument is noisy in operation, and does not possess the rapid direct action of the type-bar machines. On the other hand, it is a variable spacer, giving more space to such wide letters as m and w than to the narrow letters i, t, and 1, a distinct advantage over the type bar machines, where each letter, wide or narrow, occupies precisely the same space. Of such cylinder machines the newest form is the Crandall type-writer, an apparatus supplied with spare type cylinders or “sleeves,” which are easily separated and attached, so that many kinds of type can be brought into actual use. Of wheel machines the Columbia may be taken as one of the most recent examples. It is a simple and cheap apparatus in which the letters and signs are placed on the periphery of a wheel by the rotation of which any desired type is brought into position for printing. The machine is furnished with a dial index and pointer to indicate the type which is in position. The wheel machine has the advantages of variable spacing, and wheels with type of different character can readily be placed on it; on the other hand, it is not capable of being run with a rapidity nearly so great as can be secured with type-bar machines. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 697 [9:24:697] | |
kp-eb0924-069801-0739m | WRYNECK (Germ. Wendehals, Dutch Draaihalzeη, French Torcoι), a bird so called from its wonderful way of writhing its head and neck, especially when captured, as it may easily be, on its nest in a hollow tree. The lynx ^[1. Frequently misspelt, as by Linnaeus in his later years, Yunx. ] torquilla of ornithology, it is a regular summer-visitant to most parts of Europe, generally arriving a few days before the Cuckow, and it is in many countries known by some name associating it with that well-known bird—as in England “Cuckow’s leader” and “Cuckow’s mate”— but occasionally it is called “Snake-bird,” not only from the undulatory motions just mentioned, but from the violent hissing with which it seeks to repel an intruder from its hole.^[2. The peculiarity was known to Aristotle, and possibly led to the cruel use of the bird as a love-charm, to which several classical writers refer, as Pindar (Pyth. iv. 214; Nem. iv. 35), Theocritus (iv. 17, 30), and Xenophon (Memorabilia, in. xi. ’ 17, 18). In one part at least of China a name, Shay-ling, signifying “Snake’s neck,” is given to it (Ibis, 1875, p. 125). ]
The very unmistakable note of the Wryneck, without having any intrinsic merit, is always pleasant to hear as a harbinger of spring. It is merely a repetition of what may be syllabled que, que, que, many times in succession, rapidly uttered at first, but gradually slowing and in a continually falling key. This, however, is only heard during a few weeks, and for the rest of the bird’s stay in Europe it seems to be mute. It feeds almost exclusively on insects, especially on ants, and may often be seen on the ground, busily engaged at their nests. Somewhat larger than a Sparrow, its plumage is not easily described, being beautifully variegated with black, brown, buff, and grey—the last produced by minute specks of blackish-brown on a light ground—the darker markings disposed in patches, vermiculated bars, freckles, streaks, or arrow-heads—and the whole blended most harmoniously, so as to recall the coloration of a Goatsucker (q.v.) or of a Woodcock (q.v.). The Wryneck builds no nest, but commonly lays its translucent white eggs on the bare wood of a hole in a tree, and it is one of the few wild birds that can be induced to go on laying by abstracting its eggs day after day, and thus upwards of forty have been taken from a single hole—but the proper complement is from six to ten. As regards Britain, the bird is most common in the south-east, its numbers decreasing rapidly towards the west and north, so that in Cornwall and Wales and beyond Cheshire and Yorkshire its occurrence is but rare, while it appears only by accident in Scotland and Ireland.
Some writers have been inclined to recognize five other [9:24:699] species of the genus lynx ; but the so-called I. japonica is specifically indistinguishable from I. tοrquilla ; while that designated, through a mistake in the locality assigned to it, I. indica, has been found to be identical with the I. pectoralis of South Africa. Near to this is I. ρulchricollis, discovered by Emin Pasha in the east of the Bar-el-Djebel {Ibis, 1884, p. 28, pl. iii.). Another distinct African species is the I. aequatorialis, originally described from Abyssinia. The Wrynecks, as already stated (Woodpecker, supra, p. 652), form a Subfamily lynginae, of the Picidae, from the more normal groups of which they differ but little in internal structure, but much in coloration and in having the tail-quills flexible, or at least not stiffened to serve as props as in the climbing Picinae. (a. n.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 698 [9:24:698] | |
kp-eb0924-069901-0740m | WUHU, or Woo-Hoo, a district city in the province of Gan-hwuy, China, is situated about a mile from the south bank of the Yang-tsze Keang river, with which it is connected by a straggling suburb. By the treaty of 1858 it was marked out as one of the treaty ports, but it was not opened to trade until 1877. At first its commercial progress was very slow, the neighbourhood of the older ports of Kew-keang and Chin-keang militating against its success; but of late years there has been a distinct improvement in the trade of the port, the gross value of which was £1,316,863 in 1885 and £2,011,327 in 1886. The principal exports are rice and silk piece goods, while next in importance come feathers, hides, nutgalls, and tea. For the production of feathers large quantities of ducks are reared in the surrounding districts. Of imports, opium is by far the most considerable item, amounting in 1886 to 779,728 lb, of the value of £652,223. In the same year £126,093 worth of cotton goods were imported, and £124,014 worth of sugar. Of the minor articles, matches, needles, sandalwood, and window glass form the largest items. During the same period 1088 vessels entered the port (691 British, 362 Chinese). The city, which is one of the largest of its rank in China, was laid desolate during the T’ai-p’ing rebellion, but it is gradually becoming repeopled. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 699 [9:24:699] | |
kp-eb0924-069902-0740m | WÚN, a British district in the chief commissionership of Berar, lying between 19° 46' and 20° 42' N. lat. and between 77° 26' and 79° 10' E. long., and containing an area of 3907 square miles. It is bounded on the N. and W. by Amraoti and Basim districts, on the S. by the Nizam’s Dominions, and on the E. by Wardhá and Chándá districts of the Central Provinces. Wún is a wild hilly country intersected by offshoots from the Ajanta chain of mountains. For the most part the hills in the district are bare, or clothed only with dwarf teak or small jungle; but on the heights near Wún town the bamboo grows abundantly, and elsewhere small bamboos are found in the ravines. The Wardhá and Paingangá, which bound the district on the east and south, unite at its south-east corner. The Paingangá carries off nearly all the drainage of the district. Wún is rich in coal and iron ores. Of wild animals the tiger, leopard, and hyaena abound; bears, wolves, and jackals are also numerous; while small game is plentiful in all parts. There is a great want of means of communication; during the rains cart traffic is entirely suspended, the only means of transit at this time of the year being that afforded by water from the Wardhá for a short distance. The climate is enervating and unhealthy, and the average annual rainfall is about 41 inches.
Wúu district forms part of the territory assigned by the nizam to the British. Government under the treaties of 1853 and 1860. It was undisturbed during the mutiny of 1857. In 1886-87 the gross revenue amounted to £86,174, of which the land contributed £57,391. The population in 1881 was 392,102 (males 201,491, females 190,611); Hindus numbered 335,787, Mohammedans 17,031, Christians 127, and aboriginals 37,252. Wún, the chief town of the district (population 4207), has some fine temples. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 699 [9:24:699] | 20 42' N 79 10' E |
kp-eb0924-069903-0740m | WURTEMBERG,^[1. The origin of the name is disputed, though the once popular derivation from “Wirth am Berg” is universally rejected. Some authorities derive it from an old proper name Wirnto or Wirtino, others from a Celtic place-name Virodunum or Verdunum. Wirten-berc, Wirtenberg, Wirtemberc are early forms. Wirtemberg was long current, and in the latter half of the 16th century Würtemberg and Württemberg appear. The last was adopted in 1806 as the official spelling, though Würtemberg, the ordinary English spelling, is also common, and occurs sometimes in official documents and even on coins issued after that date. ] or Württemberg, a European kingdom, forms a tolerably compact mass in the south-west angle of the German empire, of which it is the third factor in point of area and the fourth in point of population. In the south it is cleft by the long narrow territory of Hohenzollern, belonging to Prussia; and it encloses six small enclaves of Baden and Hohenzollern, while it owns seven small exclaves within the limits of these two states. It lies between 47° 34' 48" and 49° 35' 17" N. lat., and between 8° 15' and 10° 30' E. long. Its greatest length from north to south is 140 miles; its greatest breadth is 100 miles; its boundaries, almost entirely arbitrary, have a circuit of 1116 miles; and its total area is 7531 square miles, or about one twentyeighth of the entire empire. It is bounded on the E. by Bavaria, and on the other three sides by Baden, with the exception of a short distance on the S., where it touches Hohenzollern and the Lake of Constance. For administrative purposes the country is divided into the four circles (“kreise”) of the Neckar in the north-west, the Jagst in the north-east, the Black Forest in the southwest, and the Danube in the south-east.
Wurtemberg forms part of the South-German tableland, and is hilly rather than mountainous. In fact the undulating fertile terraces of Upper and Lower Swabia may be taken as the characteristic parts of this agricultural country. The usual estimates return one-fourth of the entire surface as “plain,” less than one-third as “mountainous,” and nearly one-half as “hilly.” The average elevation above the sea-level is 1640 feet; the lowest point is at Böttingen (410 feet), where the Neckar quits the country; the highest is the Katzenkopf (3775 feet), on the Hornisgrinde, on the western border.
The chief mountains are the Black Forest on the west, the Swabian Jura or Rauhe Alb, stretching across the middle of the country from south-west to north-east, and the Adelegg Mountains in the extreme south-east, adjoining the Algau Alps in Bavaria. The Rauhe Alb or Alp slopes gradually down into the plate.iu on its south side, but on the north it is sometimes rugged and steep, and has its line broken by isolated projecting hills. The highest summits are in the south-west, viz., the Lemberg (3326 feet), Ober-Hohenberg (3312 feet), and Plettenberg (3293 feet). In a narrower sense the name Rauhe Alb is reserved for the eastern portion only of the Swabian Jura, lying between Hohenzollern and Bavaria; in the narrowest sense of all it is applied to a single group near Reutlingen. Most of the isolated summits above referred to (none of which are over 2630 feet) project from this eastern section; among them are the hills of Hohenstaufen, Teck, Mossingen, and Hohenzollern.
The Black Forest (Germ. Schwarzwald), a mountain group or system deriving its name from the dark foliage of its pine forests, lies partly in Würtemberg and partly in Baden. Its general shape is that of a triangle, its base resting on the Rhine between the Lake of Constance and Basel, and its apex pointing north. It stretches along the east bank of the Rhine from Basel to Durlach, at a distance varying from 4 to 15 miles from the river, and parallel to the Vosges range on the west bank. The south, west, and north faces of the group are rugged and steep, but on the east it loses its mountainous character, and melts so gradually into the bounding plateau that it is difficult to assign it definite limits on that side. The total length of the Black Forest range is 93 miles, its breadth varies from 46 to 13 miles, and its area is 1913 square [9:24:700] miles. The average elevation decreases from south to north from 3280 feet to 2296 feet. The hills do not rise in peaks but in rounded summits and plateau-like masses and combs, separated from each other by the deep ravines of the streams.
The south part of the Black Forest was called Mons Abnoba by the Romans, and the whole was known to them from the 3rd century as Silva Marciana. The name Silva Nigra appears in mediaeval Latin. This retired district, always somewhat overshadowed by the majestic beauties of the neighbouring Swiss Alps, was long unvisited and almost unheard of. Within comparatively recent years, however, it has become a favourite resort for summer visitors and tourists. Though not boasting any very striking mountain scenery, the Black Forest includes romantic and wild vales as well as smiling and picturesque valleys; and the beauty of its streams and waterfalls, its fragrant and shady forests, the quaintness of its sequestered villages, and the primitive simplicity of its inhabitants, who still retain their peculiar costume, are all objects of interest.
About two-thirds of the Black Forest belongs to Baden and the remaining third to Wiirtemberg; but it is convenient to disregard the political boundaries, and to consider it as formed of the Southern or Upper and the Northern or Lower Black Forest, separated from each other by the deep and romantic gorge of the Kinzig. The principal rocks are stratified gneiss and eruptive granite, though some of the summits are porphyritic. In the north and east those rocks are covered with a tolerably thick layer of variegated and red sandstone, which also appears, though not so abundantly, in the south and west. The kernel of the Southern Black Forest is the Feldberg (4803 feet), the highest point in the range, round which the other summits and masses are grouped. Among the chief summits are the Belchen (4640 feet), the Erz-kasten (4218 feet), the Hochkopf (4150 feet), and the Kandelberg (4077 feet). The average height of the crest in this division of the forest is about 3300 feet. The chief streams are the Wutach, Alb, Wehra, Wiese, Neumagen, and Dreisam, all tributaries of the Rhine, and the Brege and Bregach, regarded as the head-waters of the Danube. On the eastern slopes lie the Feldsee, Titisee, Schuchsee, and numerous other small lakes, most of them in bleak and solitary situations among the extensive moors. The waterfall on the Gutach, at Triberg, is 170 feet high. The central height of the Northern Black Forest is the Hornisgrinde (3825 feet), on the border between Wiirtemberg and Baden. Other heights are the Hohe Ochenskopf (3460 feet), the Hohloh (3225 feet), and the Kniebishohen (3180 feet), with the Kniebis Pass. The average height of the crest is 2470 feet. The principal streams are the Kinzig and Murg, which join the Rhine, and the Glatt, Enz, and Nagold, which fall into the Neckar. The eastern slopes of this division also are sprinkled with lakes, the chief of which are the gloomy Mummelsee and the Wildesee.
As the name implies, the Schwarzwald is largely covered with forests, chiefly of pines and firs. Oaks, beeches, &c., also flourish, especially in the valleys and towards the west. The timber trade and. its cognate industries are thus the chief resources of the inhabitants. The felled timber is floated in the form of rafts down the numerous streams to the Neckar or Rhine, where larger rafts are formed, sometimes requiring a crew of several hundred men, for the voyage to Holland, the principal market. The increase of railways has, however, considerably diminished the quantity of wood thus exported by water; and numerous sawmills within the limits of the forest are engaged in cutting timber into planks for export by rail. Perhaps, however, the most characteristic industry of the Blick Forest is the manufacture of wooden clocks (often spoken of as “Dutch clocks”). This industry has long flourished in the district, and has recently been organized and extended, while considerable factories have been established at Furtwangen, Triberg, and other chief centres. Clocks to the value of about £2,000,000 are said to be annually produced, and 1400 persons are engaged in their manufacture. Musical-boxes are also extensively made here. Straw-plaiting occupies a large number of girls and women, especially in winter; and glass-blowing, charcoal-burning, and potash-boiling are also carried on. Agriculture is of no great importance, as the soil is poor, and the crops scanty. Cattle are kept in considerable numbers; they are driven up to the mountains in summer, and return to the valleys in autumn. The mining industry is quite insignificant; coal is worked to a small extent in a P, , n ^ r Rotliegenden. In spite of their industrial resources, aided by the wealth introduced by tourists and visitors to the numerous mineral springs, the population of the Black Forest is too numerous to find supportat home, and large numbers go abroad as pedlars, merchants, servants, &c.
The climate of the Schwarzwald is severe, but healthy. The forests cease at 4250 feet, and are succeeded by scanty grass and herbs. On many of the summits snow lies for ten months in the year, yet m some of the valleys vines, almonds, and chestnuts ripen. Wild boars, deer, hares, foxes, and various kinds of game are found, lhe carnage-roads follow the valleys, but innumerable footpaths ⅛ad in all directions through the magnificent woods. The Black Forest railway, opened in 1873, ascends the picturesque valleys of the Kinzig and Gutach by means of bridges, viaducts, and tunnels, often of the boldest construction.
To the south of the Rauhe Alb the plateau of Upper Swabia stretches to the Lake of Constance and eastwards across the Iller into Bavaria. Between the Alb and the Black Forest in the north-west are the fertile terraces of Lower Swabia, continued on the north-east by those of Franconia.
About 70 per cent, of Wiirtemberg belongs to the basin of the Rhine, and about 30 per cent, to that of the Danube. The principal river is the Neckar, which flows northward for 186 miles through the country to join the Rhine, and with its tributaries drains 57 per cent, of the kingdom. On the west it receives the Enz, swelled by the Nagold, and on the east the Fils, Rems, Murr, Kocher, and Jagst. The Danube flows from east to west across the south half of Wiirtemberg, a distance of 65 miles, a small section of which is in Hohenzollern. Just above Ulm it is joined by the Iller, which forms the boundary between Bavaria and M 7 urtemberg for about 35 miles. The Tauber in the north-east joins the Main; the Argen and Schüssen in the south enter the Lake of Constance. The lakes of Wiirtemberg, with the exception of those in the Black Forest, all lie south of the Danube. The largest is the Federsee (640 acres) near Buchau. About one-fifth of the Lake of Constance is reckoned to belong to Wiirtemberg. Mineral springs are abundant; the most famous spa is Wildbad, in the Black Forest.
The climate is temperate,—colder among the mountains in the south than in the north. The mean temperature varies at different points from 43° to 50° F. The abundant forests induce much rain, most of which falls in summer. The soil is on the whole fertile and well-cultivated; and for many centuries agriculture was almost the only resource of the inhabitants. Middle and Lower Swabia are the most fertile districts. The removal of burdens and restrictions in 1848 and 1849, and intelligent state-aid, combined with the formation of agricultural societies, have encouraged farming, but the practice of parcelling the land in minute patches among the members of the communities still retards progress. According to returns made in 1878, 45·2 per cent, of the land was under agriculture, 30 - 7 under forest, 19 , 4 in pasture, 1 ’ 2 in vineyards, and the remainder unproductive. Grain is produced in excess of the home demand.
The following table shows the average annual extent (in acres) of the chief crops in 1878-1880, and the value :—
[table]
Pease, maize, rape, hemp, flax, hops, and chicory are also produced in considerable quantity; tobacco is grown in the valley of the Neckar. Wiirtemberg is very rich in fruit trees of various kinds, and market-gardening flourishes near the larger towns and in the Remsthal. In 1880 there were 35,000 acres under vegetables. The cultivation of the vine is a highly important industry iu the valleys of the Neckar and some of the other streams. In the period 1827-1882 the average annual area under vines was 63,327 acres, yielding 5,701,454 gallons of wine, worth £411,700. The best year was 1835, when 22,303,006 gallons were produced, the worst was 1854, with 1,696,376 gallons. Among the best Wiirtemberg wines are those known as Rothenberger, Türkheimer, Lämmler, Brodwasser, Käsberger, Elpinger, Schalksteiner, Weinsberger, Markelsheimer, Verrenberger, and Lindelberger. About one-third of the entire country is under forest, the greater proportion of which consist of deciduous trees (oaks, beeches, &c.). Coniferous trees are most numerous in the Black Forest, in Upper Swabia, and in the circle of Jagst. Most of the forests belong to the state or to public companies, and are carefully and skilfully managed. Large tracts in the Black Forest are in the hands of the “Schiflergesellschaft,” a very ancient guild of timber merchants.
In 1883 Wiirtemberg contained 96,885 horses, 904,139 cattle, 550,104 sheep, 292,206 swine, and 54,876 goats. The breeding of [9:24:701] horses commands a good deal of attention from Government, which maintains several stud-farms. Cattle, bred for export, are reared mainly in the Jagst and Danube divisions, sheep on and near the Alb.
Salt and iron are the only minerals of industrial importance found in Würtemberg, and both are worked almost entirely by Government. There are five Government salt-works (the chief of which are Friedriehshall and Wilhelmsglück), employing together 425 hands. In 1879-80 970,084 tons of salt were produced·, two-thirds by mining. The salt industry only began to be of importance at the beginning of the present century. The iron industry on the other hand is of great antiquity, though it is much hampered by the entire absence of coal mines in Würtemberg. The chief fuel used in smelting the iron is wood or charcoal. Iron is mined at Neuenbürg, Freudenstetten, and, to a very limited extent, in the Black Forest. In 1877-80 15,546 tons of ore λvere raised by 110 miners, yielding about 33 per cent, of raw metal. Cement, gypsum, grindstones, millstones, building-stones, &c., are also found. The annual value of the minerals of all kinds raised in Würtemberg has been roughly estimated at about £350,000.
Until the close of the Napoleonic wars, Würtemberg was almost exclusively an agricultural and bucolic country; but since that period it has turned its attention to trade and manufactures, and perhaps now stands second only to Saxony among the German states iu commercial and industrial activity. The want of coal is naturally a serious drawback, but it is to a certain extent compensated by the abundant water-power. The textile industry is carried on in most of its branches. Wool, from both domestic and foreign sources, is woven at Esslingen, Göppingen, and other towns in Lower Swabia; cotton is manufactured in Göppingen and Esslingen, and linen in Upper Swabia. Lace-making also flourishes in the last-named district, as a rural house-industry. The silk industry of Würtemberg, which employs about 1100 hands, though not very extensive in itself, is the most important silk industry in Germany. Ravensburg claims to have possessed the earliest paper-mill in Germany; paper-making is still important in that town and at Heidenheim, Heilbronn, Göppingen, and other places in Lower Swabia. Government owns six iron foundries and puddling works, the most important of which is at Wasseralfingen, where over 1000 hands are employed. The locomotive engines of Esslingen enjoy a wide reputation; and agricultural and other machinery, boilers, and tools of various kinds are also manufactured and exported by various towns. The organs of Ludwigsburg are well known; bell-founding is carried on at Stuttgart, Reutlingen, and Cannstatt; beetroot sugar and beer are considerable items in the 1ist of annual produce;—wine has been already mentioned. The manufacture of chemicals at Stuttgart, Heilbronn, &c., is important.
Trade has prospered since Würtemberg joined the North German Customs Union in 1834. The leading trading towns are Heilbronn, Stuttgart, Ulm, and Friedrichshafen. Cattle, horses, sheep, agricultural produce, timber, salt, and various manufactured goods are the chief exports; coal, hops, steel goods of various kinds, eggs, and poultry are among the chief imports. The booktrade of Stuttgart is very extensive; that town has been called the Leipsic of southern Germany.
In 1887 991 miles of railway were open for traffic in Würtemberg. With the insignificant exception of two private lines, together no more than 31 miles long, all the railways are in the hands of the state. The Neckar, the Schüssen, and the Lake of Constance are all navigable fòr boats; the Danube begins to be navigable at Ulm. The roads of Würtemberg are fairly good; the oldest are Roman. Würtemberg, like Bavaria, retained the control of its own postal and telegraph system on the foundation of the new German empire. In 1885 there were 1750 miles of telegraph wires in the kingdom.
1n 1885 the population of Würtemberg was 1,995,168, or one twenty-third of the total population of Germany on one twentyeighth of its area. The average per square mile is 264 - 9. The following table shows the distribution of the population among the administrative districts, and their religion. The Neckar division contains most large towns.
[table]
The people of the north-west belong to the Alemannic stock, those of the north-east to the Franconian, and those of the centre and south to the Swabian. According to the occupation census of 1882, the following were the numbers of those (including their families and dependants) engaged in the various departments of work:—in agriculture, forestry, &c., 942,924; in mining and industrial pursuits, 674,081; in trade and commerce, 143,258; in domestic and other service, 11,254; in professions, 95,712; “no returns,” 90,240. In 1886 there were 3717 emigrants; in 1881 there were 11,470.
In 1885 there were 15 towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants, viz., Stuttgart (125,906), Ulm (33,610), Heilbronn (27,758), Esslingen (20,864), Cannstatt or Canstatt (18,031), Reutlingen (17,319), Ludwigsburg (16,201), Gmünd (15,321), Tübingen (12,551), Göppingen (12,102), and Ravensburg (11,482).
About two-thirds of the population are Protestant. In 1880, when the total population was 1,971,118, there were 1,364,580 Protestants, 590,290 Roman Catholics, 13,331 Jews, 2817 of other Christian sects, and 98 “others.” The Protestant church is controlled (under the minister of religion and education) by a consistory and a synod,—the latter being made up of the consistory and six general superintendents or “prelates” from six principal towns. But no laws are made or altered without the consent of a representative council, including both lay and clerical members. The Roman Catholic church is subject to the bishop of Rottenburg, in the archdiocese of Freiburg. Politically it is under a Roman Catholic council, appointed by Government. The Jews also since 1828 have been subject to a state-appointed council.
Würtemberg is one of the best educated countries of Europe. School attendance is compulsory on children from seven to fourteen years of age, and young people from fourteen to eighteen must either attend the schools on Sunday or some other educational establishment. Every community of at least 30 families must have a school. The different churches attend to the schools of their own confession. There is a university at Tübingen, and a polytechnic school at Stuttgart. Technical schools of various kinds are established in many of the towns, in addition to a thorough equipment of gymnasia, commercial schools, seminaries, &c. The conservatory of music at Stuttgart enjoys a high reputation.
Würtemberg is a constitutional monarchy and a member of the German empire, with 4 votes in the federal council and 17 in the imperial diet. The constitution rests on a law of 1819, amended in 1868 and 1874. The crown is hereditary, and conveys the simple title of king of Würtemberg. The king receives a civil list of £90,670, and the “apanages” of the crown amount to £14,900 more. The legislature is bi-cameral. The upper chamber (Standesherren) is composed of adult princes of the blood, heads of noble families from the rank of count (Graf) upwards, representatives of territories (Standesherrschaften) which possessed votes in the old German diet, and of life members nominated by the king. The number of this last class must not exceed one-third of the house. The lower house (Abgeordneten-Haus) has 93 members, viz., 13 noble landowners, elected by their peers (Ritterschaft), the 6 Protestant “prelates,” the Roman Catholic bishop, and 2 other official Roman Catholic members, the chancellor of the university of Tübingen, 7 representatives from the chief towns, and 63 representatives from country districts. The king appoints the president of the upper chamber; since 1874 the lower chamber has elected its own chairman. Members are elected for six years by ballot; the suffrage is enjoyed by all male citizens. With the exception of the royal princes and the life-members of the upper house that reside in Stuttgart, the members of both houses receive a daily payment of 9m. 41ρf. (9s. 5d.) each.
The highest executive is in the hands of a ministry of state (Staatsministerium), consisting of six ministers and the privy council, the members of which are nominated by the king. There are ministers of justice, war, finance, home affairs, religion and education, and foreign affairs, railways, and the royal household. The legal system is framed in imitation of that of the German empire. The judges of the supreme court for impeachments of ministers, &c., named the Staatsgerichtshof, are partly elected by the chambers and partly appointed by the king. The country is divided into four administrative “circles,” subdivided into 64 “Oberämter,” each of which is under an “Oberamtmann,” assisted by an “Amtsversammlung” or local council. At the head of each of the four large divisions is a “Regierung.”
The official finance period of Würtemberg embraces two years. For 1885-87 the budget showed an annual income of £2,811,921, balanced by the expenditure, which included a payment of £2500 to a reserve fund. The chief sources of income were taxes (£1,392,893, including £691,773 of direct taxes), and public domains and monopolies (£1,095,336, including £662,385 from railways and £72,741 from post and telegraphs). The chief expenditure was on the interest (£875,525) and sinking fund (£122,873) of the public debt. This debt amounted in 1887 to £21,202,570, of which by far the greater proportion (£18,966,700) was incurred for constructing and buying railways. Most of it bears interest at 4 per cent.
In terms of the convention of 1870 the troops of Würtemberg form the 13th army corps in the imperial German army. They include 8 regiments of infantry, 4 of cavalry, and 2 of field artillery, &c. By the army law of March 11, 1887, the peace strength of the army was fixed at 773 officers, 18,815 men, and 64 cannon. The town of U1m is one of the strongest fortresses in Germany.
[9:24:702]
The earliest known inhabitants of the country now called Wurtemberg seem to have been Suevi. The Romans, who appeared first about 15 b.c., added the south part of the land to the province of Gaul in 84 a.d., and defended their positions there by a wall or rampart. About the beginning of the 3d century the Alemanni drove the Romans beyond the Rhine and the Danube; but they in their turn were conquered by the Franks under Clovis (496), and the land was divided between Rhenish Franconia and the duchy of Alemannia. The latter, however, disappears about 760, and its territories were administered for the Frankish monarchs by “grafs” or counts, until they were finally absorbed in the duchy of Swabia. The last duke of Swabia died in 1268, and a large share of his power and possessions fell into the hands of the ‘ ‘ grafs” of Würtemberg, whose ancestral castle crowned a hill between Esslingen and Cannstatt. Tradition mentions a Conradus de Wirtemberc in 1090, but the earliest authentic count seems to have been Ulrich (1241-1265), who had large possessions in the valleys of the Neckar and the Rems. The power of this family grew steadily under successive counts; and in 1482 their possessions were declared indivisible. This early adoption of the principle of primogeniture saved Wurtemberg from the wasting effects of those family feuds and jealousies which interfered so seriously with the development of some of the other German states. Eberhard V., surnamed “im Bart” (1482-1496), was one of the most energetic and illustrious rulers that Wurtemberg ever had, and in 1495 his possessions were raised by the emperor to the dignity of an immediate imperial duchy. The reign of Ulrich I. (1498-1550), who succeeded to the duchy while still a child, was a most eventful period for the country, and many stories and traditions cluster round the name of this gifted and vigorous but unscrupulous and ambitious man. The extortions by which he sought to raise money for his extravagant pleasures excited a rising known as the “arme Konrad” (poor Conrad)—not unlike [the rising of Wat Tyler in England; and by the treaty of Tübingen in 1514 his people undertook to pay his debts in exchange for various political privileges, which in effect laid the foundation of the constitutional liberties of the country. A few years later, however, Ulrich quarrelled with the Swabian league of imperial towns, and their army headed by the duke of Bavaria, who was incensed by Ulrich’s ill-treatment of his wife, a Bavarian princess, invaded Wurtemberg, expelled the duke, and in 1520 sold the duchy to Austria for 220,000 florins. Ulrich, however, found his opportunity in the discontent caused in Wurtemberg by the military and religious oppression of Austria, and in the disturbed state of the empire during the Peasants’ War, and the commotions excited by the Reformation. Aided by Philip of Hesse and other Protestant princes, he fought a victorious battle at Lauffen in 1534; and by the treaty of Kadan he was recognized once more as duke, though forced to acknowledge his duchy a fief of Austria. One of his first acts was to introduce the Reformation, and to endow Protestant churches and schools throughout his land. His connexion with the Schmalkaldian League once more cost him a temporary expulsion from his throne, but Charles V. reinstated him in 1547, though under severe conditions. Ulrich’s son Christopher (1550-1568) introduced systems of law and church government (Grosse Kirchenordnung) which have endured in part to the present day. The establishment In this reign of a kind of standing committee to superintend the finances was the beginning of popular representation in the government, though its members belonged exclusively, of course, to the higher ranks. Frederick I. (1593-1608), an energetic and ambitious prince, induced the emperor Rudolph II. in 1599 to raise the duchy o∣nce more to the dignity of an immediate fief of the empire. In the reign of his successor, John Frederick (1608-1628), Wurtemberg suffered severely from the Thirty Years’ War, though the duke took no active share in that struggle. His son and successor, however, Eberhard III. (1628-1674), eagerly joined in it, but with disastrous effects. Wurtemberg was occupied by imperial troops, the duke was driven into exile, and when the peace of Westphalia once more reinstated him he found but 50,000 subjects where he had left 400,000. In the reign of Eberhard IV. (1677-1733), who was but one year old when his father William died, Wurtemberg made acquaintance with another destructive enemy. In 1688, 1692, 1703, and 1707 the French entered the country with fire and sword, annihilating whole villages in their ruthless brutality, and leaving deserts in their track. The depopulated country eagerly afforded a welcome and a home to the Waldensians, who had been driven from their valleys by the duke of Savoy in 1699. Charles n e L . , ° became duke in 1733, had embraced the Roman
Catholic faith when an officer in the Austrian service, while his favourite minister was the unscrupulous Jew Süss Oppenheimer, lhe duke, instigated by his minister, was believed to aim at the suppression of the diet, and at the introduction of the Romish faith, but Charless sudden death in 1737 put an abrupt end to these plans, buss Oppenheimer was hanged by the regent, before the next duke, Charles Eugene (1737-1793) came of age in 1744. 1 he prince was gifted but vicious, and he soon fell into the hands of unworthy favourites. His whole reign was disturbed by dissensions betwixt the ruler and the ruled, in which the intervention of foreign powers (Prussia and England) was invoked, though in vain, by the unhappy people. Alarmed by the gathering discontent, Charles made a few concessions in his old age. Frederick Eugene (1795-1797), a brother of Charles Eugene, had been brought up at the court of Frederick the Great, whose niece he married. His children were, through this influence, educated as Protestants, and the royal family of Würtemberg have been Protestants since his death.
Frederick II. (1797-1816) resembled the first of his name in becoming embroiled with the diet. He declared war against France in defiance of the wishes of his people, and when the French invaded the country he retired to Erlangen, till after the peace of Lunéville (1801). By a private treaty at the same date, he exchanged Montbéliard (which had belonged to Würtemberg since 1418) and his Alsatian possessions for nine imperial towns and other territories, amounting in all to 850 square miles, with 124,000 inhabitants. He accepted also the title of elector from Napoleon. The newly acquired districts were not incorporated with his former possessions, but remained separate under the name “New Würtemberg.” The new district had no diet. This was the first of a series of transactions with the national enemy, which swelled Frederick’s territory, though they added but little to his credit. In 1805 Würtemberg took up arms on the side of France, and the elector was rewarded at the peace of Pressburg by various Austrian possessions in Swabia, and the title of king. On January 1, 1806, Frederick assumed the royal style, abrogated the constitution, and united old and new Würtemberg. He subsequently united church and state, and proclaimed religious equality. In 1806 King Frederick I. joined the Confederation of the Rhine, and received fresh territories, with 160,000 inhabitants; and the peace of Vienna brought 110,000 new subjects under his sceptre. But he had to perform his part of the bargain by joining Napoleon in his campaigns against Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Of 16,000 Würtembergers who marched to Moscow, only a few hundred returned. When fortune turned, Frederick with ready adroitness changed sides, and managed to preserve his royal title and most of his new-won lands by joining the allies immediately after the battle of Leipsic.
Würtemberg had been promised a constitution by Frederick before he died in 1816, but a good deal of discussion took place before it was granted in 1819 by William I. (1816-1864). A period of quiet now set in, and the educational condition of the kingdom, its agriculture, and its trade and manufactures began to receive earnest attention. The desire for political freedom had by no means been satisfied by the constitution of 1819, and a “liberal opposition” began to make itself felt about 1830. The agitation of 1848 did not leave Würtemberg undisturbed, though no scenes of actual violence took place in the kingdom. The conservative ministry granted freedom of the press and other privileges, too late, however, to avert their fall. The king was compelled to call the liberals to power in March 1848, and a new liberal constitution was granted. But as soon as the stress was over the “March ministry” was dismissed, and the reactionary party were again in the ascendant. By a high-handed interference with recently granted popular rights on the part of the king and his ministers a servile diet was assembled in 1851, which yielded up without hesitation all that had been gained since 1848. The constitution of 1819 was reinstituted, and it has remained, with only a few modifications, ever since. In 1864 Charles ascended the throne. In the duel between Prussia and Austria for supremacy in Germany, the sympathies of the rulers of Würtemberg were always on the side of the latter, although the country entered the Customs Union under Prussia’s protection in 1864. In 1866 Würtemberg took up arms on behalf of Austria; but the Würtemberg troops were defeated at Tauberbischofsheim, three weeks after Sadowa, and its ministers sued for peace. Prussia exacted an indemnity of 8 million florins, and Würtemberg struck a secret offensive and defensive treaty with its conqueror. In 1870 this kingdom shared in the national enthusiasm which swept over Germany when France declared war; and its troops had a creditable share in the memorable campaign of 1870-71. Since the foundation of the present German empire, the separate history of Würtemberg has been of almost exclusively focal interest. The tendency of legislation has been, on the whole, liberal.
A very full and minute description of würtemberg, together with copious lists of authorities on all subjects connected with it, will be found in Das Königreich Württemberg, Stuttgart, 1882 sq , officially published by the Königliches Statistisch-Topographisches Bureau. (F. MU.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-070201-0743m | WURTZ, Charles Adolphe (1817-1884), chemist, was born at Strasburg on November 26, 1817. His father, Jean Jacques Wurtz, was then Lutheran pastor at the small village of Wolfisheim near Strasburg. His mother, Sophie Kreiss, was the sister of Theodore Kreiss, professor of Greek at the Protestant gymnasium of Strasburg, and of Adolphe Kreiss, a Lutheran pastor. When Wurtz was [9:24:703] nine years old his father was translated to the church of St Pierre le Jeune in Strasburg, and died there in 1845. Madame Wurtz, after the death of her husband, remained at Strasburg with her brother Theodore, and after his death lived with her son Adolphe in Paris till her own death in 1878.
Wurtz was educated first at Wolfisheim and afterwards at the Protestant gymnasium of Strasburg. There he obtained several prizes, but seems rather to have disappointed his father, who said he would never turn out anything extraordinary. He took special interest in those studies which bore upon nature; in 1828 he took part in a botanical class with excursions, which developed his taste for natural science.
His education owed more perhaps to his home circle than to the school. His learned and pious father, his more generally cultured uncles, and the circle of friends attracted by them opened to him a wide view of what there is for a man to know. His holidays were mostly spent at the house of a grand-aunt at Rothau, where he learned to know the hills and woods of Alsace, and amused himself in the spinning, weaving, bleaching, and printing works in the neighbourhood. In 1834 he left the gymnasium with the degree of bachelier-ès-lettres. His father seems to have wished him to devote himself to the church. But he had already made his choice. For some time he had fitted up a sort of laboratory in the washing-house, and had there repeated the experiments he had seen performed in the class-rooms of the gymnasium. His father took no interest in science, but consented to his study of medicine as next best to theology. He went through his studies conscientiously, and passed all his examinations with credit, but of course devoted himse!f specially to the chemical side of his profession. In 1839 he was appointed superintendent of practical chemistry in the faculty of medicine under Professor Cailliot. He graduated as M.D. 13th August 1843, the title of his thesis being “On Albumin and Fibrin.” He then went for a year to Giessen, to study under Liebig. There he made the acquaintance of Hofmann, Strecker, and Kopp. On leaving Giessen he went to Paris, where he worked in Dumas’s private laboratory, and in 1845 was appointed assistant to Dumas in the École de Médecine. In 1847, on his presentation of a thesis “On Pyrogenic Bodies,” he was appointed “professor aggrégé,”and in 1849 he gave the lectures on organic chemistry in place of Dumas. His laboratory in the École Pratique de la Faculté de Médecine was very inconvenient and ill fitted up; he therefore, in 1850, along with Dollfus and Verdeil, who had just returned to Paris from Giessen, opened a private laboratory in the Rue Garancière. The adventure was successful in a scientific sense as long as it lasted; but unfortunately the three chemists had neglected to secure fixity of tenure, the house was sold, and they had to retire and sell their furnishings. The same year Wurtz was appointed professor of chemistry in the Institut Agronomique, then founded at Versailles. But here also the want of fixity was felt. Louis Napoleon abolished the Institut in 1852. In 1853 Dumas resigned the chair of organic chemistry in the faculty of medicine; at the same time the chair of mineral chemistry and toxicology became vacant by the death of Orfila; the two chairs were united, and Wurtz was appointed to the post thus constituted. In 1866 he was made dean of the faculty of medicine, and used his influence for the rearrangement and reconstruction of the buildings devoted to scientific teaching. In 1874 he persuaded the Government to found a chair of organic chemistry at the Sorbonne, and resigned his office of dean, retaining the title of honorary dean. At the Sorbonne he had a smaller but better prepared audience than at the
École de Médecine. But he had great difficulty in persuading the Government to build him a suitable laboratory, and indeed did not live to see the new laboratory opened. He was appointed senator in 1881. He was one of the founders of the Chemical Society of Paris, of which he was the first secretary, and was three times president. He was elected member of the Academy of Sciences in 1867, in succession to Pelouze. He was vice-president in 1880 and president in the following year. He died, after a short illness, May 12, 1884. Wurtz was an honorary member of nearly every scientific society in Europe. In 1878 he gave the Faraday lecture of the Chemical Society of London, and in 1881 was awarded the Copley medal by the Royal Society of London. Through life he remained warmly attached to the church of his fathers, and took a practical interest in its affairs.
Wurtz’s work is chiefly to be found in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, in the Comptes Rendus, and in the Bulletin de la Société Chimique. The following is a short outline of his most important discoveries. First, with respect to the constitution of hypophosphorous and phosphorous acids, he showed that the salts of these acids all contain the elements of water, and proposed formulae for them, in which the salt radical is represented as containing hydrogen. These formulae, translated, of course, into the modern language, which Wurtz did so much to introduce, are still used as the best representations of the constitution of these salts. In the course of this investigation he discovered the curious and interesting compound cuprous hydride. He also discovered sulphophosphoric acid and the oxychloride of phosphorus. His next great work was on cyanuric acid. He discovered the cyanic ethers (R-N = C = O), and from them obtained the mono-alkyl ureas. From the cyanic ethers he produced a class of substances which opened the way into a new field of organic chemistry. On treating these ethers with caustic potash he obtained potassium carbonate and an ammoniacal vapour. These vapours he soon recognized as ammonia, in which an equivalent of hydrogen had been replaced by methylium, CH 3 , or ethylium, C 2 H 5 . By acting on the cyanic ethers with his new bases he obtained the dialkyl ureas. In 1855 he reviewed the various substances that had been obtained from glycerin, and came to the conclusion that glycerin is a body of alcoholic nature formed on the type of three molecules of water, as common alcohol is on that of one. This speculation led him in 1856 to the discovery of the glycols, alcoholic bodies similarly related to the type of two molecules of water. This discovery he worked out very thoroughly, in investigations on oxide of ethylene and the polyethylenic alcohols. The oxidation of the glycols led him to homologues of lactic acid, and to a discussion of the constitution of the latter. On this question a controversy arose with Kolbe, in the course of which many important facts were discovered, and valuable additions were made to chemical theory. In 1867 Wurtz obtained neurine synthetically, by the action of trimethylamine on glycol-chlorhydrine. In 1873 he discovered aldol, CH 3 -CH(OH)-CH 2 -CHO, and pointed out its double character as at once an alcohol and an aldehyde.
His investigations on the olefines had led him to the discovery of the peculiar behaviour of the substance called by him chlorhydrate of amylene and of its analogues, when the temperature of their vapour is raised. The gradual passage from a gas of approximately normal vapour density to one of half the normal density was used by him as a powerful argument in favour of the opinion that abnormal vapour densities, such as those of sal-ammoniac and pentachloride of phosphorus, are to be explained by dissociation. By experiments at low temperatures and pressures he obtained nearly the normal density in the case of the pentachloride of phosphorus, and showed how the dissociation depends on the temperature and pressure. He took an active part in the discussion as to the dissociation of the vapour of hydrate of chloral, in which H. Sainte-Claire Deville and Μ. Berthelot were his chief opponents. By well-chosen experiments he brought to light the facts involved, and stated the case for dissociation in a very clear and to most minds very convincing way.
Wurtz for twenty years, from 1852 to 1872, published in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique abstracts of chemical work done out of France. In 1868 he began, with the assistance of many French chemists, the publication of the Dictionnaire de Chimie Fure et Appliquée. This great work, many important articles in which were written by himself, was finished in 1878. (Two volumes of appendix have since been added.) In 1864 he published a book in two volumes entitled Chimie Médicale, and in 1867 Leçons Élémentaires de Chimie Moderne, an excellent little text-book which has gone through five editions in French, and has been translated into English by Prof. Greene. In 1879 appeared his Théorie Atomique, and in 1885 Traité de Chimie Biologique. This was his last work; [9:24:704] he corrected the last proof-sheets himself, and the last part of the book was published a few weeks after his death.
A full account of the life and work of Wurtz, with a list of his published books and papers, will be found in the obituary notice by Μ. Friedel in the Bulletin de la Société Chimique, vol. xliii., i.-lxxx., 1885. (A. C. B.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-070401-0745m | WÜRZBURG, or Wirzberg, the fourth largest town in Bavaria, and the chief town of the district of Lower Franconia in the north-west of that kingdom, is situated on both sides of the Main, 60 miles south-east of Frankfort. An ancient stone bridge (1474-1607), 650 feet long, and adorned with statues of saints, connects the two parts of the town. Würzburg is quaintly and irregularly built; many of the houses are interesting specimens of mediaeval antiquity; and the numerous old churches recall the fact that it was long the capita! of an ecclesiastical principality. The principal church is the imposing Romanesque cathedral, a basilica with transepts, begun in 1042 and consecrated in 1189. The four towers, however, date from 1240, the (rococo) façade from 1711-19, and the dome from 1731. The spacious transepts terminate in apses. The beautiful Marienkapelle, a Gothic edifice of 1377-1441, was restored in 1856; it is embellished with fourteen statues by Tilman Riemenschneider, who died at Würzburg in 1531. The Stifthaug church, with two towers and a lofty dome, was built in the Italian Renaissance style in 1670-91. The bones of St Kilian, patron saint of Würzburg, are preserved in the Neumünster church, which dates from the 11th century; walther von der Vogel weide is buried in the adjoining cloisters. The church of St Burkard is externally one of the best preserved architectural monuments in the city. It was built in 1033-42, in the Romanesque style, and was restored in 1168. The Late Gothic choir dates from 1494-97. The Neubaukirche, or university church, curiously unites a Gothic exterior with a Classical interior. The Protestant church of St Stephen (1782-89) originally belonged to a Benedictine abbey. Of the secular buildings in Würzburg the most conspicuous is the royal (formerly episcopal) palace, a huge and magnificent edifice built in 1720-44 in imitation of Versailles. The Julius hospital, a large and richly endowed institution affording food and lodging to 600 persons daily, was founded in 1576 by Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn. The quaint town-house dates in part from 1456. Among the other chief buildings are the Government offices, the theatre, the Maxschule, the observatory, and the various university buildings. A university was founded at Würzburg in 1403, but only existed for a few years. The present university was founded by Bishop Julius in 1582. Owing to its connexion with the large hospital, its laboratories, and its rich anatomical collections, the medical faculty speedily became famous, and has remained the most important faculty at Würzburg ever since. The university library contains 200,000 volumes, and there are numerous scientific institutes connected with the main institution. In 1886 it was attended by 800 students (600 medical), and had a teaching staff of 70 professors and lecturers. The other educational establishments of Würzburg are numerous; among them is a music institute, which gives instruction gratis in vocal and instrumental music.
Würzburg is surrounded by vineyards, which yield some of the best wines in Germany; it also carries on the manufacture of beer, leather, tobacco, and railway carriages. The environs are highly picturesque as well as fertile; the most interesting point is the Leistenburg, on which stands the fortress of Marienburg, the residence of the bishops until 1720. This position was occupied by a Roman fort, and seems to have been fortified by Bishop Conrad, who died in 1203. The population of Würzburg in 1885 was 55,100, of whom 9000 were Protestants.
Würzburg is one of the most ancient and interesting towns of Germany, and as the capital of an immediate episcopal principality long played an important part in the history of the empire. The first bishop was Burkard, consecrated in 741, though the town seems to have existed in the previous century. The bishops soon acquired a considerable share of temporal power, and in the 15th century enjoyed the title of dukes of East Franconia. The citizens of Würzburg espoused the cause of Henry IV. against their bishop, and in 1086 the town was twice taken by the contending armies. Various imperial diets were held in Würzburg, the chief being those of 1180, when Henry the Lion was placed under the ban, and of 1209, when Otto IV. was betrothed. In 1525 the rebellious peasants under Götz von Berlichingen took the town, but were repulsed from the Marienburg, and were defeated with great slaughter by the Swabian forces. The bishopric, which at one time embraced an area of 190 square miles, with 250,000 inhabitants, was secularized at the peace of Lunéville, and passed to Bavaria in 1803. The peace of Pressburg (1805) transferred it, under the name of an electorate, to the grand-duke of Tuscany, who joined the Confederation of the Rhine, assuming the title grand-duke of Würzburg. The congress of Vienna restored it to Bavaria. Archduke Charles defeated Marshal Jourdan near Würzburg in 1796; and in 1866 the bombarding of the citadel was the last warlike act of the Prussian army of the Main. The Würzburg conference is the name given to the meeting of the representatives of the smaller German states in November 1859 to devise some means of mutual support in the imperial diet. Wircebirgurn is the old Latin form of the name of the town; Herbipolis (herb-town; Wurz is the German for root or herb) appears in the 12th century. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-070402-0745m | WYANDOTTE, formerly a city and the county seat of Wyandotte county, Kansas, United States, had in 1886 a population of 13,840. In that year Armourdale (2634) and Kansas City, Kansas (4755), were consolidated with Wyandotte under the name of Kansas City, Kansas. The city is situated upon the west bank of the Missouri river and north bank of the Kansas river, in eastern Kansas, immediately adjoining the State line, and separated by it from Kansas City, Missouri. The surrounding country is a fertile and highly cultivated prairie. The city is intersected by several railroads, most of which are branches of the Missouri Pacific system. It is rather irregularly laid out, being an aggregation of independent settlements, and its municipal improvements are in a formative stage. The population in 1886 was 21,229 (about 16 per cent, of foreign birth and 20 per cent, coloured). Kansas City is the third in the State in point of population. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-070403-0745m | WYAT, Sir Thomas (1503-1542), is an important figure historically in English literature, although his poetry does not rank very high in intrinsic value. He was undoubtedly the leader, the first in point of time, and the acknowledged master of “the company of courtly makers” who in the reign of Henry VIII., under Italian influence, transformed the character of English poetry. Surrey (⅛.v.) is usually associated with Wyat in this leadership, and his influence was probably greater, as his verse was superior in fluency, dexterity, and force. But the priority, the actual lead, undoubtedly belongs to wyat, who was Surrey’s senior by fourteen years, and was celebrated by the younger poet with all the homage of an enthusiastic disciple. That there should ever have been any doubt upon the point arises from the fact that their poems were not printed till several years after both were dead, that they were then printed together in the same collection (ToiteVs Miscellany, 1557), and that Surrey’s name was placed first on the title-page by the publisher, while his poems preceded Wyat’s in the Miscellany. It is to Wyat that the praise rightfully belongs of being the first writer of sonnets in English. He is also our first writer of satires in the classical form. Apart from tlιe question of their services as pioneers of new metres and a new vein of love sentiment, there is a wide difference in character between Surrey and Wyat. Their poetry strongly corroborates the evidence of their portraits by Holbein. Wyat is much less bright and radiant, of a grave, sedate cast, with a vein of humorous melancholy and satiric [9:24:705] observation. It is not known for certain that Wyat ever travelled in Italy, but the probability that he did so is strong, wyat’s father, Sir Henry, the owner of Allington castle in Kent, was a prominent figure at the court of Henry VII., and a residence at one of the Italian courts was then a usual part of the education of a young man of rank, wyat was born in 1503, and we have no record of him between his taking his bachelor’s degree at Cambridge at the age of fifteen and his being sworn a member of the privy council at the age of thirty, except that he took part in the tournament at a great feast held by the king at Greenwich in 1525. He was knighted in 1536, and twice sent as ambassador to the emperor, a strong proof of his repute as a statesman and diplomatist. He died in 1542, in the course of a hurried journey to Falmouth to meet and convoy an ambassador from the emperor. Wyat is commonly known as Sir Thomas Wyat the elder, to distinguish him from his son of the same name, who headed an insurrection against Mary in 1554, and paid the penalty of failure. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-070501-0746m | WYATT, James (1743-1813), a popular architect, born in Staffordshire in 1743, who lived at a time when architectural taste was at its lowest ebb. He spent some time in Rome making measured drawings of the classical remains, and on his return to England became one of the most successful architects of his time, and eventually was elected president of the Royal Academy. On the death of Sir William Chambers in 1796, Wyatt was appointed surveyor to the Board of Works. His chief works were a number of buildings at Kew for George III., all in the worst taste, and Fonthill Abbey for the rich and eccentric Mr Beckford, author of Vathek. This enormous and costly mansion, a sort of theatrical parody of a Gothic abbey, was erected in an incredibly short space of time by relays of workmen labouring day and night. The massive and lofty tower collapsed soon after it was finished, and a great part of this extravagant architectural freak has since been pulled down. James Wyatt was killed by a fall from his carriage in 1813. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 705 [9:24:705] | |
kp-eb0924-070502-0746m | WYCHERLEY, William (c. 1640-1715), the typical “Restoration dramatist,” and one of the greatest masters of the comedy of repartee, was born about 1640 at Clive, near Shrewsbury, where for several generations his family had been settled on a moderate estate of about £600 a year. Like Vanbrugh, Wycherley spent his early years in France, whither, at the age of fifteen, he was sent to be educated in the very heart of the “precious” circle who disported on the banks of the Charente. Wycherley’s friend, Major Pack, tells us that his hero “improved, with the greatest refinements,” the “extraordinary talents” for which he was “obliged to nature.” Although the harmless affectations of the Rambouillets and Montausiers, among whom he was thrown, are certainly not chargeable with the “refinements” of Wycherley’s comedies—comedies which caused even his great admirer Voltaire to say afterwards of them, “Il semble que les Anglais prennent trop de liberté et que les Françaises n’en prennent pas assez ”— these same affectations seem to have been much more potent in regard to the “refinements” of Wycherley’s religion.
Wycherley, though a man of far more intellectual power than is generally supposed, was a fine gentleman first, a responsible being afterwards. Hence under the manipulations of the heroine of the “Garland” he turned from the Protestantism of his fathers to Romanism—turned at once, and with the same easy alacrity as afterwards, at Oxford, he turned back to Protestantism under the manipulations of such an accomplished master in the art of turning as Bishop Barlow. And if, as Macaulay hints, Wycherley’s turning back to Romanism once more had something to do with the patronage and unwonted liberality of James IL, this merely proves that the deity he worshipped was the deity of the “polite world” of his time—gentility. Moreover, as a professional fine gentleman, at a period when, as the genial Major Pack says, “the amours of Britain would furnish as diverting memoirs, if well related, as those of France published by Rabutin, or those of Nero’s court writ by Petronius,” Wycherley was obliged to be a loose liver. But, for all that, Wycherley’s sobriquet of “Manly Wycherley” seems to have been fairly earned by him, earned by that frank and straightforward way of confronting life which, according to Pope and Swift, characterized also his brilliant successor Vanbrugh.
That effort of Wycherley’s to bring to Buckingham’s notice the case of Samuel Butler (so shamefully neglected by the court Butler had served) shows that the writer of even such heartless plays as The Country Wife may be familiar with generous impulses, while his uncompromising lines in defence of Buckingham, when the duke in his turn fell into trouble, show that the inventor of so shameless a fraud as that which forms the pivot of The Plain Dealer may in actual life possess that passion for fairplay which is believed to be a specially English quality. But among the “ninety-nine” religions with which Voltaire accredited England there is one whose permanency has never been shaken—the worship of gentility. To this Wycherley remained as faithful to the day of his death as Congreve himself. And, if his relations to that “other world beyond this,” which the Puritans had adopted, were liable to change with his environments, it was because that “other world” was really out of fashion altogether.
Wycherley’s university career seems also to have been influenced by the same causes. Although Puritanism had certainly not contaminated the universities, yet English “quality and politeness” (to use Major Pack’s words) have always, since the great rebellion, been rather ashamed of possessing too much learning. As a fellow-commoner of Queen’s College, Oxford, Wycherley only lived (according to Wood) in the provost’s lodgings, being entered in the public library under the title of “Philosophiae Studiosus” in July 1660. And he does not seem to have matriculated or to have taken a degree.
Nor when, on quitting Oxford, he entered himself of the Middle Temple, did he give any more attention to the dry study of the law than was proper to one so warmly caressed “by the persons most eminent for their quality or politeness.” Pleasure and the stage were alone open to him, and in 1672 was produced, at the Theatre Royal, Love in a Wood. With regard to this comedy Wycherley told Pope—told him “over and over” till Pope believed him—believed him, at least, until they quarrelled about Wycherley’s verses—that he wrote it the year before he went to Oxford. But we need not believe him: the worst witness against a man is mostly himself. To pose as the wicked boy of genius has been the foolish ambition of many writers, but on inquiry it will generally be found that these inkhorn Lotharios are not nearly so wicked as they would have us believe. When Wycherley charges himself with having written, as a boy of nineteen, scenes so callous and so depraved that even Barbara Palmer’s appetite for profligacy was, if not satisfied, appeased, there is, we repeat, no need to believe him. Indeed, there is ∙every reason to disbelieve him,—not for the reasons advanced by Macaulay, however, who in challenging Wycherley’s date does not go nearly deep enough. Macaulay points to the allusions in the play to gentlemen’s periwigs, to guineas, to the vests which Charles ordered to be worn at court, to the great fire, &c., as showing that the comedy could not have been written the year before the author went to Oxford. We must remember, however, that even if the play had been written in that year, and delayed in its production [9:24:706] till 1672, it is exactly this kind of allusion to recent events which any dramatist with an eye to freshness of colour would be certain to weave into his dialogue. It is not that “the whole air and spirit of the piece belong to a period subsequent to that mentioned by Wycherley,” but that “the whole air and spirit of the piece” belong to a man,—an experienced and hardened young man of the world,—and not to a boy who would fain pose as an experienced and hardened young man of the world. The real defence of Wycherley against his foolish impeachment of himself is this, that Love in a Wood, howsoever inferior in structure and in all the artistic economies to The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer, contains scenes which no inexperienced boy could have written—scenes which, not for moral hardness merely, but often for real dramatic ripeness, are almost the strongest to be found amongst his four plays. With regard to dramatic ripeness, indeed, if we were asked to indicate the finest touch in all Wycherley, we should very likely select a speech in the third scene of the third act of this very play, where the vain, foolish, and boastful rake Dapperwit, having taken his friend to see his mistress for the express purpose of advertising his lordship over her, is coolly denied by her and insolently repulsed. “I think,”says Dapperwit, “women take inconstancy from me worse than from any man breathing.”
Now, does the subsequent development of Wycherley’s dramatic genius lead us to believe that, at nineteen, he could have given this touch, worthy of the hand that drew Malvolio? Is there anything in his two masterpieces— The Country Wife or The Plain Dealer— that makes it credible that Wycherley, the boy, could have thus delineated by a single quiet touch vanity as a chain-armour which no shaft can pierce—vanity, that is to say, in its perfect development? However, Macaulay (forgetting that, among the myriad vanities of the writing fraternity, this of pretending to an early development of intellectual powers that ought not to be, even if they could be, developed early is at once the most comic and the most common) is rather too severe upon Wycherley’s disingenuousness in regard to the dates of his plays. That the writer of a play far more daring than Etheredge’s She Would if She Could —and far more brilliant too—should at once become the talk of Charles’s court was inevitable; equally inevitable was it that the author of the song at the end of the first act, in praise of harlots and their offspring, should touch to its depths the soul of the duchess of Cleveland. Possibly Wycherley intended this famous song as a glorification of Her Grace and her profession, for he seems to have been more delighted than surprised when, as he passed in his coach through Pall Mall, he heard the duchess address him from her coach window as a “rascal,” a “villain,” and as a son of the very kind of lady his song had lauded. For his answer was perfect in its readiness: “Madam, you have been pleased to bestow a title on me which belongs only to the fortunate.” Perceiving that Her Grace received the compliment in the spirit in which it was meant, he lost no time in calling upon her, and was from that moment the recipient of those “favours” to which he alludes with pride in the dedication of the play to her. Voltaire’s story (in his Letters on the English Nation) that Her Grace used to go to Wycherley’s chambers in the Temple disguised as a country wench, in a straw hat, with pattens on and a basket in her hand, may be apocryphal, —very likely it is,—for disguise was quite superfluous in the case of the mistress of Charles II. and Jacob Hall,— but it at least shows how general was the opinion that, under such patronage as this, Wycherley’s fortune as poet and dramatist, “eminent for his quality and politeness,” was now made.
Charles, who had determined to bring up his son, the duke of Richmond, like a prince, was desirous of securing for tutor a man so entirely qualified as was Wycherley to impart what was then recognized as the princely education, and it seems pretty clear that, but for the accident, to which we shall have to recur, of his meeting the countess of Drogheda at Bath and secretly marrying her, the education of the young man would actually have, been entrusted by his father to Wycherley as a reward for the dramatist’s having written Love in a Wood.
Whether Wycherley’s experiences as a naval officer, which he alludes to in his lines “On a Sea Fight which the Author was in betwixt the English and the Dutch,” occurred before or after the production of Love in a Wood is a point upon which opinions differ, but on the whole we are inclined to agree with Macaulay, against Leigh Hunt, that these experiences took place not only after the production of Love in a Wood but after the production of The Gentleman Dancing Master, in 1673. We also think, with Macaulay, that he went to sea simply because it was the “polite” thing to do so—simply because, as he himself in the epilogue to The Gentleman Dancing Master says, “all gentlemen must pack to sea.”
This second comedy is inferior to Love in a Wood, and for the reasons already discussed in connexion with the works of another dramatist (see Vanbrugh). In The Relapse, however, the artistic mistake of blending comedy and farce damages a splendid play, but leaves it a splendid play still. In The Gentleman Dancing Master this mingling of discordant elements destroys a play that would never under any circumstances have been strong,—a play nevertheless which abounds in animal spirits, and is luminous here and there with true dramatic points.
It is, however, on his two last comedies— The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer— that must rest Wycherley’s fame as a master of that comedy of repartee which, inaugurated by Etheredge, and afterwards brought to perfection by Congreve and Vanbrugh, supplanted the humoristic comedy of the Elizabethans. The Country Wife, produced in 1675, is so full of wit, ingenuity, animal spirits, and conventional humour that, had it not been for its motive—a motive which in any healthy state of society must always be as repulsive to the most lax as to the most moral reader—it would probably have survived as long as the acted drama remained a literary form in England. So strong, indeed, is the hand that could draw such a character as Marjory Pinchwife (the undoubted original not only of Congreve’s Miss Prue but of Vanbrugh’s Hoyden), such a character as Sparkish (the undoubted original of Congreve’s Tattle), such a character as Horner (the undoubted original of all those cool impudent rakes with whom our stage has since been familiar), that Wycherley is certainly entitled to a place alongside Congreve and Vanbrugh. And, indeed, if priority of date is to have its fair and full weight, it seems difficult to challenge Prof. Spalding’s dictum that Wycherley is “the most vigorous of the set.”
In order to do justice to the life and brilliance of The Country Wife we have only to compare it with The Country Girl, afterwards made famous by the acting of Mrs Jordan, that Bowdlerized form of The Country Wife in which Garrick, with an object more praiseworthy than his success, endeavoured to free it of its load of unparalleled licentiousness by disturbing and sweetening the motive,—even as Voltaire afterwards (with an object also more praiseworthy than his success) endeavoured to disturb and sweeten the motive of The Plain Dealer in La Prude. While the two Bowdlerized forms of Garrick and Voltaire are as dull as the Aesop of Boursault, the texture of Wycherley’s scandalous dialogue would seem to scintillate with the changing hues of shot silk or of the neck of a [9:24:707] pigeon or of a shaken prism, were it not that the many-coloured lights rather suggest the miasmatic radiance of a foul ditch shimmering in the sun. It is easy to share Macaulay’s indignation at Wycherley’s satyr-like defilement of art, and yet, at the same time, to protest against that disparagement of their literary riches which nullifies the value of Macaulay’s criticism. And scarcely inferior to The Country Wife is The Plain Dealer, produced in 1677,·— a play of which Voltaire said, “Je ne connais point de comédie chez les anciens ni chez les modems ou il y ait autant d’esprit.” Strong language, no doubt; but Voltaire has prevented it from seeming too strong by turning the play into La Prude, and offering us in that a subject for comparison. No one has pointed out the immense influence of this comedy, as regards manipulation of dialogue, upon all our subsequent comedies of repartee, from those of Congreve and Vanbrugh to those of Douglas Jerrold and T. W. Robertson; and, as to characters, he who wants to trace the ancestry of Tony Lumpkin and Mrs Hardcastle has only to turn to Jerry Blackacre and his mother, while Manly (for whom Wycherley’s early patron, the duke of Montausier, sat), though he is perhaps overdone, has dominated this kind of stage character ever since. If but few readers know how constantly the blunt sententious utterances of this character are reappearing, not on the stage alone, but in the novel and even in poetry, it is because a play whose motive is monstrous and intolerable can only live in a monstrous and intolerable state of society; it is because Wycherley’s genius was followed by Nemesis, who always dogs the footsteps of the defiler of literary art. When Burns said—
“The rank is hut the guinea stamp The man ’s the gowd. for a’ that,”
when Sterne, in Tristram Shandy, said, “Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal, but gold and silver will pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their own weight,” what did these writers do but adopt— adopt without improving—Manly’s fine saying to Freeman, in the first act :—“I weigh the man, not his title; ’tis not the king’s stamp can make the metal better or heavier ”? And yet it is in the fourth and fifth acts that the coruscations of Wycherley’s comic genius are the most dazzling; also, it is there that the licentiousness is the most astonishing. Not that the worst scenes in this play are really more wicked than the worst scenes in Vanbrugh’s Delapse, but they are more seriously imagined. Being less humorous than Vanbrugh’s scenes, they are more terribly and earnestly realistic; therefore they seem more wicked. They form indeed a striking instance of the folly of the artist who selects a story which cannot be actualized without hurting the finer instincts of human nature. When Menander declared that, having selected his plot, he looked upon his comedy as three parts finished, he touched upon a subject which all workers in drama—all workers in imaginative literature of every kind—would do well to consider. In all literatures—ancient and modern—an infinite wealth of material has been wasted upon subjects that are unworthy, or else incapable, of artistic realization; and yet Wycherley’s case is, in our literature at least, without a parallel. No doubt it may be right to say, with Aristotle, that comedy is an imitation of bad characters, but this does not mean that in comedy art may imitate bad characters as earnestly as she may imitate good ones,—a fact which Thackeray forgot when he made Becky Sharp a murderess, thereby destroying at once what would otherwise have been the finest specimen of the comedy of convention in the world. And perhaps it was because Vanbrugh was conscious of this law of art that he blended comedy with farce. Perhaps he felt that the colossal depravity of intrigue in which the English comedians indulged needs to be not only warmed by a superabundance of humour but softened by the playful mockery of farce before a dramatic circle such as that of the Restoration drama can be really brought within human sympathy. Plutarch’s impeachment of Aristophanes, which affirms that the master of the Old Comedy wrote less for honest men than for men sunk in baseness and debauchery, was no doubt unjust to the Greek poet, one side of whose humour, and one alone, could thus be impeached. But does it not touch all sides of a comedy like Wycherley’s—a Comedy which strikes at the very root of the social compact upon which civilization is built? As to comparing such a Comedy as that of the Restoration with the Comedy of the Elizabethans, Jeremy Collier did but a poor service to the cause he undertook to advocate when he set the occasional coarseness of Shakespeare alongside the wickedness of Congreve and Vanbrugh. And yet, ever since Macaulay’s essay, it has been the fashion to speak of Collier’s attack as being levelled against the immorality of the “Restoration dramatists.” It is nothing of the kind. It is (as was pointed out so long ago as 1699 by Dr Drake in his little-known vigorous reply to Collier) an attack upon the English drama generally, with a special reference to the case of Shakespeare. While dwelling upon that noxious and highly immoral play Hamlet, Collier actually leaves unscathed the author of The Country Wife, but fastens on Congreve and Vanbrugh, whose plays—profligate enough in all conscience—seem almost decent beside a comedy whose incredible vis matrix is “the modish distemper.”
That a stage, indeed, upon which was given with applause A Woman Killed with Kindness (where a wife dies of a broken heart for doing what any one of Wycherley’s married women would have gloried in doing) should, in seventy years, have given with applause The Country Wife shows that in historic and social evolution, as in the evolution of organisms, “change” and “progress” are very far from being convertible terms. For the barbarism of the society depicted in these plays was, in the true sense of the word, far deeper and more brutal than any barbarism that has ever existed in these islands within the historic period. If civilization has any meaning at all for the soul of man, the Englishmen of Chaucer’s time, the Anglo-Saxons of the Heptarchy, nay, those half-naked heroes, who in the dawn of English history clustered along the southern coast to defend it from the invasion of Caesar, were far more civilized than that “race gangrenée ”—the treacherous rakes, mercenary slaves, and brazen strumpets of the court of Charles IL, who did their best to substitute for the human passion of love (a passion which was known perhaps even to palaeolithic man) the promiscuous intercourse of the beasts of the field. Yet Collier leaves Wycherley unassailed, and classes Vanbrugh and Congreve with Shakespeare!
It was after the success of The Plain Dealer that the turning-point came in wycherley’s career. The great dream of all the men about town in Charles’s time, as Wycherley’s plays all show, was to marry a widow, young and handsome, a peer’s daughter if possible,—but in any event rich, and spend her money upon wine and women. While talking to a friend in a bookseller’s shop at Tunbridge, Wycherley heard The Plain Dealer asked for by a lady who, in the person of the countess of Drogheda, answered all the requirements. An introduction ensued, then love-making, then marriage—a secret marriage, for, fearing to lose the king’s patronage and the income therefrom, Wycherley still thought it politic to pass as a bachelor. He had not seen enough of life to learn that in the long run nothing is politic but “straightforwardness.” Whether because his countenance wore a nensive and subdued[9:24:708] expression, suggestive of a poet who had married a dowager countess and awakened to the situation, or whether because treacherous confidants divulged his secret, does not appear, but the news of his marriage oozed out, —it reached the royal ears, and deeply wounded the father anxious about the education of his son. Wycherley lost the appointment that was so nearly within his grasp, —lost indeed the royal favour for ever. He never had an opportunity of regaining it, for the countess seems to have really loved him, and Love in a Wood had proclaimed the writer to be the kind of husband whose virtue prospers best when closely guarded at the domestic hearth. Wherever he went the countess followed him, and when she did allow him to meet his boon companions it was in a tavern in Bow Street opposite to his own house, and even there under certain protective conditions. In summer or in winter he was obliged to sit with the window open and the blinds up, so that his wife might see that the party included no member of a sex for which her husband’s plays had advertised his partiality. She died at last, however, and left him the whole of her fortune. But the title to the property was disputed; the costs of the litigation were heavy—so heavy that his father was unable (or else he was unwilling) to come to his aid; and the result of his marrying the rich, beautiful, and titled widow was that the poet was thrown into the Fleet prison. There he languished for seven years, being finally released by the liberality of James IL,—a liberality which, incredible as it seems, is too well authenticated to be challenged. James had been so much gratified by seeing The Plain Dealer acted that, finding a parallel between Manly’s “manliness” and his own, such as no spectator had before discovered, he paid off Wycherley’s execution creditor. Other debts still troubled Wycherley, however, and he never was released from his embarrassments, not even after succeeding to a life estate in the family property. In coming to Wycherley’s death, we come to the worst allegation that has ever been made against him as a man and as a gentleman. At the age of seventy-five he married a young girl, and is said to have done so in order to spite his nephew, the next in succession, knowing that he himself must shortly die and that the jointure would impoverish the estate. No doubt it is true enough that he did marry the girl and did die eleven days afterwards; but, if we consider that the lady he married was young and an heiress (or was supposed to be an heiress), and if we further consider how difficult it was for an old gallant of Wycherley’s extraordinary personal vanity to realize his true physical condition, we may well suppose that, even if he talked about “marrying to spite his nephew,” he did so as a cloak for other impulses, such as senile desire or senile cupidity, or a blending of these impulses.
Wycherley wrote verses, and, when quite an old man, prepared them for the press by the aid of Alexander Pope, then not much more than a boy. But, notwithstanding all Pope’s tinkering, they remain contemptible. He died in December 1715, and was buried in the vault of the church in Covent Garden. (τ. w.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 705 [9:24:705] | |
kp-eb0924-070801-0749m | WYCLIFFE,^[1. A note is necessary as to the spelling of Wycliffe’s name. Out of thirteen contemporary entries in documents, twelve give “y” in the first syllable; the seven entries in the Queen’s College accounts show four with “y” to three with “i,” but these do not certainly refer to the reformer. In not one of these is there a “ck” (though once a “kc”) (see Mr F. D. Matthew, in the Academy, June 7, 1884). The chroniclers, &c., offer every imaginable variety of spelling, and it is possible that our favourite form in more recent times, “Wickliffe,” derived its popularity from the old play on the name, “nequam vita,” which we find in Gascoigne. Our choice must be decided by usage, and the spelling adopted in the present article is that of the village from which Wycliffe derived his name; it is also preferred by the editors of the Wycliffe Bible, by Milman, and bý Bishop Stubbs. Among the rest “Wyclif has the support of Shirley, of Mr T. Arnold, and of the Wyclif Society; while “Wiclif” is the popular form in Germany. ] or Wyclif, John (c. 1320-1384), was born, according to Leland,^[2. Itinerary, Stow’s transcript, Bodleian Library, Tanner MS., p. 464, f. 45 (Leland’s original being mutilated at this place). Hearne misprinted the name “Spreswel,” and thus set all Wycliffe’s biographers on a search after a vox nihili. ] our single authority on the point, at Ipreswel (evidently the place now called Hipswell), a mile from Richmond, in Yorkshire. The date may have been somewhere about 1320. Leland elsewhere mentions that he “drew his origin” from Wycliffe-on-Tees (Collectanea, ii. 329), so that his lineage was of the ancient family which is celebrated by Scott in Marmion. The Wycliffes had a natural connexion with the college at Oxford which had been founded in the latter part of the previous century by their neighbours, the Balliols of Barnard Castle; and to Balliol College, then distinctively an “arts” college,^[3. See a document of 1325 printed in the appendix to the Fourth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, p. 442 sq. Provision for theological study was made by the benefaction of Sir Philip Somerville in 1340 (Lyte, Hist, of the Univ, of Oxford, p. 154, 1886). ] John Wycliffe in due time proceeded. It has been generally believed, and was in fact believed not many years after his death, that he was a fellow of Merton College in 1356; but in all probability this identification rests upon a confusion with another and contemporary John Wycliffe. That the future reformer was a fellow of Balliol College is implied in the fact that some time after 1356, but before the summer of 1360, he was elected master of the college. This office he held but a short time. So soon as 1361 he accepted a college living, that of Fillingham in Lincolnshire, and probably left Oxford for some time. In 1363, however, he was back again, this time resident in Queen’s College, where he seems to have rented rooms at various dates from this year onwards;^[4. Hence arose the common mistake, which was repeated so lately as in Milman’s Hist, of Latin Christianity, bk. xiii. ch. vi., that Wycliffe began his university career at Queen’s College. It is indeed open to question whether this be not yet another John Wycliffe; see Mr H. T. Riley’s remarks in the Second Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, appendix, p. 141 sq. ] on the 13th April 1378 he obtained from his bishop leave of absence “insistendo literarum studio in universitate Oxon. per biennium,” and in the following November he exchanged his benefice for one more conveniently situate, at Ludgarshall, in Buckinghamshire. A certain amount of residence at Oxford was necessary if he was now proceeding to a degree in divinity, and still more if, as is generally understood, he is the same person with the John Wycliffe who was appointed, December 1365, to the wardenship of Canterbury Hall, a house which Archbishop Islip had lately founded for a mixed body of monks and secular clergymen, and then, changing his mind, had filled exclusively with the latter. His successor Archbishop Langham in 1367 reversed the arrangement, expelled Wycliffe and his colleagues, and substituted monks. Wycliffe appealed to Rome and lost his case, 1370. There seems no reason to dispute the legality of the action either of Archbishop Langham or of the cardinal who tried the appeal at Viterbo; but Wycliffe no doubt felt himself hardly used, and (if he be rightly identified with the reformer) the experience may have confirmed him in some of the opinions which are characteristic of his subsequent career, and which have been attributed, but only on the authority of a bitter opponent, Thomas Netter of Walden, to disappointment at not receiving the bishopric of Worcester (perhaps at its voidance in 1368). But the doubt as to the identification in the one case, and the suspicion attaching to the evidence in the other, may disincline us to reason about the motives which directed Wycliffe on to the path of reform.
[9:24:709]
Some years indeed before this time he had thrown himself publicly into the defence of what had become the national resistance to the papacy at Avignon, closely associated as the latter was with the interests of France. He had entered the service of the royal court, and apparently as king’s chaplain (“peculiaris regis clericus ”) had published a tract, Determinatio quaedam de Dominio, in support of the action of parliament in 1366, when it repudiated the tribute due to the pope. The tract is of interest, not only because it contains the first trace of the writer’s special doctrine of “dominium” or lordship (adjusting the spiritual relation to a feudal framework), but also because it shows the line of thought by which Wycliffe’s position became determined in a sense hostile to the papal system. It was not at the outset dogmatic but political elements in it which provoked his censure. He disputed the right of the spiritual power to interfere in temporal matters, and was gradually led on to deny the lawfulness of any temporal possessions of the church, and thus to become the common enemy of the beneficed clergy and of the endowed monks; with the friars he was at present on friendly terms. Wycliffe thus drew from Richard Fitz-Ralph, archbishop of Armagh, whose instruction he may have personally followed in his youth,^[5. Archbishop FitzRalph had been a fellow of Balliol College, and was vice-chancellor of the university in or about 1333 (A. à Wood, Fasti Oxοn., p. 21, ed. Gutch, 1790). His work, on which Wycliffe mainly based his theory, is entitled De Pauperie Salvatoris, and exists only in manuscript; but Mr R. L. Poole is preparing *the greater part of it for publication. An old legend makes Wycliffe take part in the archbishop’s controversy with the friars so early as 1360. It was suspected by Robert Vaughan, and then denied by Shirley. The further researches of Dr Lechler have placed the late date at which Wycliffe began his opposition to the friars on a sure foundation; and the fact has been confirmed decisively by the publication of the St Albans Chronieon Angliae, by Mr E. Μ. Thompson, in 1874 (see pp. 116, 118), and more recently by that of the reformer’s earlier Latin works. ] his doctrine of “dominium,” which the latter had employed against the friars and in favour of the endowed clergy; while at the same time he combined it with the doctrine of the excellence of “evangelical· poverty” which he derived from William of Ockham and the tradition of the Spiritual Franciscans nearly half a century earlier. Wycliffe’s position may appear paradoxical; but in truth he made a selection from the discordant views, and built up a consistent theory of his own, of which the salient principles were (1) that sin deprived a man of all right to possess anything; (2) that all property should be held in common; (3) that the spiritual power is entirely separate from the civil, and thus (4) that, should it overstep its bounds and come into contact with temporal concerns, it becomes thereby subject to civil jurisdiction; (5) that the church should hold no property; (6) that excommunication is of no effect unless justified by the sin of him against whom it is directed; and (7) that in no case should it be pronounced for any offence connected with temporal affairs. These views are expounded in Wycliffe’s several treatises De Dominio, which were written some time before 1377 and probably not long after 1370, though their precise date has not yet been established.^[6. It is uniformly asserted that Wycliffe fell into heresy after his admission to the degree of doctor {Fasc. Ziz., p. 2). The process about Canterbury Hall makes the warden B.D. in 1367 or 1368 (Lyte, p. 252, n. 5),—so that if he be the reformer we have an approximate terminus a quo for his inception. ]
Plainly such a writer was likely to be useful to the court, where John of Gaunt was now supreme,—especially since Wycliffe enjoyed the reputation of an unmatched proficiency in the scholastic learning of his day. On’ the 7th April 1374 he was presented by the crown to the rectory of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, which he held until his death; and on the following July 26th he was nominated one of the royal ambassadors to proceed to Bruges to confer with the papal representatives on the long-vexed question of “provisions.” The rank he took is shown by the facts that his name stands second, next after that of the bishop of Bangor, on the commission, and that he received pay at the princely rate of twenty shillings per diem. The commission itself was appointed in consequence of urgent and repeated complaints on the part of the Commons, but the negotiations were practically fruitless; the king had an interest in keeping up the system of papal provisions and reservations, and it could hardly be expected that any concessions that might be gained by his commissioners would imply more than a temporary compromise or an illusory advantage. Yet it is possible that the real result of the negotiations is to be found, not in the formal stipulations, but in certain articles not then committed to writing which were laid before the English parliament in February 1377.
Some time after his return Wycliffe was given the prebend of Aust in the collegiate church of Westbury-on-Trim, which he held but a short time, the confirmation of his appointment (November 6, 1375) being followed within a fortnight by the grant of the benefice to another person. Henceforth he lived mainly at Lutterworth and Oxford, making, however, frequent and, as it seems, prolonged visits to London from time to time. He assumed the position of a popular preacher there, and delighted an audience already sufficiently disaffected towards the rich and powerful clergy. He was also closely allied with John of Gaunt, who welcomed him as an instrument towards his design of humbling the church. Wycliffe indeed expressly refused to affirm that it was in such a condition as to deserve spoliation; but when to this he added that the decision was the affair of statesmen, “politicorum qui intendunt praxi et statui regnorum” {De Civili Dominio, i. 37, p. 269), it is plain that his theory might readily commend itself to the duke, while the proviso could only increase the hostility towards him of the endowed clergy. For some years he was suffered to spread his doctrines without hindrance. The archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, had no mind to proceed against him until at length the pressure of the bishops compelled him to summon the dangerous preacher to appear before the bishop of London and answer certain charges laid against him. The nature of these accusations is not stated, but their purport can hardly be doubtful. On the 19th February 1377 Wycliffe made his appearance at St Paul’s. He was accompanied by the duke of Lancaster, by Lord Percy the marshal of England, and by four doctors of the four mendicant orders. The trial, however, came to nothing; for, before Wycliffe could open his mouth, the court was broken up by a rude brawl between his protectors and Bishop Courtenay, ending in a general riot of the citizens of London, who were so much enraged by the insult to their bishop in his own cathedral church—coming as this did at the same time as a serious attempt at an invasion by the duke in parliament of their civic liberties {Chron. Angl., p. 120)—that they would have sacked his palace of the Savoy had not Courtenay himself intervened.
Wycliffe had escaped for the time, but his enemies did not rely solely on their own weapons. Probably before this they had set their case before the pope; and towards the end of May five bulls were issued by Gregory XI., who had just returned to Rome from Avignon, condemning eighteen (or in other copies nineteen) “conclusions” drawn from Wycliffe’s writings. All the articles but one are taken from his first book De Civili Dominio, the recent publication of which shows the charges to be honestly made and the quotations to be entirely free from any [9:24:710] suspicion of unfairness. The bulls truly stated Wycliffe’s intellectual lineage; he was following in the error of Marsiglio of Padua; and the articles laid against him are concerned entirely with questions agitated between church and state—how far ecclesiastical censures could lawfully affect a man’s civil position, and whether the church had a right to receive and hold temporal endowments. The bulls were addressed (May 22) to the archbishop of Canterbury and the bishcp of London, the university of Oxford, and the king. The university was to take Wycliffe and send him to the prelates; the latter were then to examine the truth of the charges and to report to the pope, Wycliffe being meanwhile kept in confinement. The execution of the papal bulls was impeded by three separate causes,—the king’s death on the 21st June; the tardy action of the bishops, who enjoined the university to make a report, instead of simply sending Wycliffe to them; and the unwillingness of the university to admit external authority, and, above all, the pope’s right to order the imprisonment of any man in England. The convocation, indeed, as the St Albans chronicler^[7. When he says that the bull was only received at Oxford shortly before Christmas, he is apparently confounding it with the prelates’ mandate, which is dated December 18 (Lewis, appendix xvii. )— Chron. Angl., p. 173. ] states with lamentation, made serious objections to receiving the bull at all; and in the end it merely directed Wycliffe to keep within his lodgings at Black Hall for a time.
If the university was disposed to favour the reformer, the Government was not less so. John of Gaunt was for the moment in retirement; but the mother of the young king appears to have adopted his policy in church affairs, and she naturally occupied a chief position in the new council. As soon as parliament met in the autumn of 1377 Wycliffe was consulted by it as to the lawfulness of prohibiting that treasure should pass out of the country in obedience to the pope’s demand. Wycliffe’s affirmative judgment is contained in a state paper still extant; and its tone is plain proof enough of his confidence that his views on the main question of church and state had the support of the nation.^[8. In one text of this document a note is appended, to the effect that the council enjoined silence on the writer as touching the matter therein contained (Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 271). This, if true, was apparently a measure of precaution. ] Indeed he had laid before this same parliament his answer to the pope’s bulls, with a defence of the soundness of his opinions. His university, moreover, confirmed his argument; his tenets, it said, were true (i.e., orthodox), though their expression was such as to admit of an incorrect interpretation. But Wycliffe was still bound to clear himself before the prelates who had summoned him, and early in 1378 he appeared for this purpose in the chapel of Lambeth Palace. His written defence, expressed in some respects in more cautious language than he had previously used, was laid before the council; but its session was rudely interrupted, not only by an inroad of the London citizens with a crowd of the rabble, but also by a messenger from the princess of Wales enjoining them not to pass judgment against Wycliffe; and thus a second time he escaped, either without sentence, or at most with a gentle request that he would avoid discussing the matters in question. Meanwhile his “protestatio” was sent on to Rome.
In the autumn of this year Wycliffe was once more called upon to prove his loyalty to John of Gaunt. The duke had violated the sanctuary of Westminster by sending a band of armed men to seize two knights who had taken refuge there. They resisted, and one of them was killed. After a while the bishop of London excommunicated all concerned in the crime (excepting only the king, his mother, and his uncle), and preached against the culprits publicly at St Paul’s Cross. The duke, fearing the anger of the Londoners, arranged that the ensuing parliament should be held at a safe distance, at Gloucester, and, it was rumoured, proposed to bring before it a sweeping scheme of spoliation of church property. Wycliffe was required to write an apology for the duke’s actions at Westminster. His paper, which is still preserved, and forms part of the De Ecclesia, seeks, without excusing the homicide, to lay down the limits within which the privilege of asylum is permissible, and maintains that the duke was right in invading the sanctuary in order to bring escaped prisoners to justice. But the duke’s whole behaviour seems to have been high-handed, and Wycliffe can with difficulty be excused from a charge of subserviency to his patron.
The year 1378 forms a turning point in Wycliffe’s career. The schism in the papacy caused by the election in September of Clement VII. in opposition to Urban VI. slowly decided Wycliffe towards a more revolutionary attitude with respect to the Roman see, a power which he now convinced himself was at the root of the disorders of the church. He set on foot an active propaganda, choosing the two special means of sending forth his “poor” or “simple priests” to preach pure doctrine throughout the country, and of making the first complete English version of the Bible. This latter work w as mainly executed by Wycliffe himself, but his friend Nicholas Hereford did part of the Old Testament. Afterwards the whole was revised by John Purvey, who assisted Wycliffe in his parish duty at Lutterworth, and finished his edition probably not long after the reformer’s death. Most existing copies are of the latter redaction, which is printed in parallel columns with the older one in the great edition of the version edited by J. Forshall and Sir F. Madden (Oxford, 1851). Wycliffe’s translation of the Bible, and still more his numerous English sermons and tracts, establish his now undisputed position as the founder of English prose writing.
Wycliffe’s itinerant preachers were not necessarily intended to work as rivals to the beneficed clergy. The idea that underlay their mission was rather analogous to that which animated Wesley four centuries later. Wycliffe aimed at supplementing the services of the church by regular religious instruction in the vernacular; and his organization included a good number of men who held or had held respectable positions in their colleges at Oxford. The influence of their teaching was soon felt throughout the country. The common people were rejoiced by the plain and homely doctrine which dwelt chiefly on the simple “law” of the gospel, while they no doubt relished the denunciation of existing evils in the church which formed, as it were, the burthen of such discourses. The feeling of disaffection against the rich and careless clergy, monks, and friars was widespread but undefined. Wycliffe turned it into a definite channel (he was now persuaded that the friars were as bad as the monks); he insensibly passed from an assailant of the papal to an assailant of the sacerdotal power; and in this way he was led to reject the distinctive symbol of that power, the doctrine of transubstantiation. It was in the summer of 1381^[9. This is the date given in the Fasciculi Zizaniorum. Wood, however, makes Berton chancellor in 1380 and 1382. But if Wycliffe’s heresy was first put forth in the latter year there seems to be hardly time for the condemnation and then for the archbishop’s summons to the London council in May. It is safest therefore to leave the date of the Fasciculi Zizaniorum undisturbed. The Peasants’ Revolt in June 1381, and the murder of Archbishop Sudbury, may sufficiently account for the interval between the Oxford and the London proceedings. ] that Wycliffe propounded at Oxford a set of theses, substituting for the accredited doctrine of the church one which [9:24:711] allowed the real presence of Christ in the consecrated elements, but denied any change of substance, a doctrine practically undistinguishable (unless by its scholastic form) from the modern Lutheran doctrine. The theologians of the university were at once roused. The chancellor, William Berton, sat with twelve doctors (half of whom were friars), and solemnly condemned the theses; Wycliffe appealed to the king, and John of Gaunt hastily sent down a messenger enjoining the reformer to keep silence on the subject.
The condemnation at Oxford was almost immediately followed by the Peasants’ Revolt, with which it has been supposed that Wycliffe had something to do. The only positive fact implicating him is the confession of one of its leaders, John Ball, that he learned his subversive doctrines from Wycliffe. But the confession of a condemned man can seldom be accepted without reserve; and we have not only the precise and repeated testimony of Knyghton that he was a “precursor” of Wycliffe, but also documentary evidence that he was excommunicated as early as 1366, long before Wycliffe exposed himself to ecclesiastical censure. Wycliffe in truth was always careful to state his communistic views in a theoretical way; they are confined to his Latin scholastic writings, and thus could not reach the people from him directly. At the same time it is very possible that his less scrupulous followers translated them in their popular discourses, and thus fed the flame that burst forth in the rebellion. Perhaps it was a consciousness of a share of responsibility for it that led them to cast the blame on the friars. In any case Wycliffe’s advocates must regret that in all his known works there is only one trace of any reprobation of the excesses that accompanied the outbreak.
In the following spring his old enemy William Courtenay, now archbishop of Canterbury, resolved to take measures for stamping out Wycliffe’s crowning heresy. He called a provincial council at the Blackfriars in London, which assembled on the 21st May 1382, and sat with intervals until July. The council was met by a hardly expected manifestation of university feeling on Wycliffe’s side. The chancellor and both the proctors stood by him. They allowed a Wycliffite sermon to be preached before the university on Ascension Day. The archbishop’s commissary complained that his life was not safe at Oxford. Still no steps were taken to bring Wycliffe to judgment. Twenty-four articles extracted from his works were condemned; some of his prominent adherents were imprisoned until they recanted; tlιe university officers were soon brought to submission, but Wycliffe himself remained at large and unmolested. It is said indeed by Knyghton that at a council held by Courtenay at Oxford in the following November Wycliffe was brought forward and made a recantation; but our authority fortunately gives the text of the recantation, which proves to be nothing more nor less than a plain English statement of the condemned doctrine. It is therefore lawful to doubt whether Wycliffe appeared before the council at all, and even whether he was ever summoned before it. Probably after the overthrow of his party at Oxford by the action of the Blackfriars council Wycliffe found it advisable to withdraw permanently to Lutterworth. That his strength among the laity was undiminished is shown by the fact that an ordinance passed by the House of Lords alone, in May 1382, against the itinerant preachers was annulled on the petition of the Commons in the following autumn. In London, Leicester, and elsewhere there is abundant evidence of his popularity. The reformer, however, was growing old. There was work, he probably felt, for him to do, more lasting than personal controversy. So in his retirement he occupied himself, with restless activity, in writing numerous tracts, Latin and English, as well as one of his most important books, the Trüdogus. In spite of a paralytic seizure which came upon him in 1382 or early in 1383, he continued his labours. In 1384 it is stated that he was cited by pope Urban VI. to appear before him at Rome; but to Rome he never went. On the 28th December of this year, while he was hearing mass in his own church, he received a final stroke, from the effects of which he died on the New Year’s eve.^[10. Of Wycliffe’s personal appearance we know hardly more than that he was a spare man with frail health. None of the existing portraits of him is contemporary. ] He was buried at Lutterworth; but by a decree of the council of Constance, May 4, 1415, his remains were ordered to be dug up and burned, an order which was carried out by Bishop Fleming in 1428.
At this distance of time Wycliffe’s reputation is still a battleground of parties. By those who uphold the indefeasible sanctity of church property, the exemption of the church from all control or oversight on the part of the state, or yet more the apostolic prerogative of the Roman see, his political doctrine is judged as revolutionary, sacrilegious, and heretical. His denial of transubstantiation is conceived to imply a base hypocrisy in his continued discharge of priestly functions; but they who maintain this argument should bear in mind that the office of the mass is older than the doctrine of transubstantiation, and a man cannot be fairly accused of dishonesty in using words in a sense at all events nearer that in which they were originally written. A sober study of Wycliffe’s life and works justifies a conviction of his complete sincerity and earnest striving after what he believed to be right. If he cannot be credited (as he has been by most of his biographers) with all the Protestant virtues, he may at least claim to have discovered the secret of the immediate dependence of the individual Christian upon God, a relation which needs no mediation of any priest, and to which the very sacraments of the church, however desirable, are not essentially necessary. When he divorces the idea of the church from any connexion with its official or formal constitution, and conceives it as consisting exclusively of the righteous, he may seem to have gone the whole length of the most radical reformers of the 16th century. And yet, powerful as was his influence in England, it was but transient, and within forty years it was nearly extinct. His true tradition is to be found not in his own country but in Bohemia, where his works were eagerly read and multiplied, and where his disciple John Huss, with less originality but greater simplicity of character and greater spiritual force, raised Wycliffism to the dignity of national religion. To Huss, whose works are to a great extent a cento of extracts from Wycliffe, Luther owed much; and thus the spirit of the English teacher had its influence on the reformed churches of Europe.
The documentary materials for Wycliffe's biography are to be found in John Lewis's Life and Sufferings of J. WκZi∕(new ed., oxford, 1820), which contains a valuable appendix of illustrative papers and records; Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, vol. iii., ed. 1855, with app.; Forshall and Madden’s preface to the Wycliffe Bible, p. vii. note, Qxford, 1851; W. W. Shirley’s edition of the Fasciculi Zizaniorum (probably the work of Thomas Netter of walden), 1858; and H. T. Riley's notices in the appendices to the Second and Fourth Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Among contemporary records the recently discovered narrative of a monk of St Albans—a bitter opponent of John of Gaunt—is of conspicuous value; it was published under the title of Chronicon Angliae, by Mr E. Μ. Thompson, 1874. of this the account in walsingham’s Historia Anglicana (ed. H. T. Riley, 1863, 1864) is mainly a modified version. Knyghton, who wrote De Eventibus Angliae at Leicester in the heart of what may be called the wycliffe country, is very well informed as to certain passages in the reformer’s history, though his chronology is extremely faulty (printed in Twysden's Hist. Anglic. Scriptores Decern, 1652). There are valuable notices also in the continuation of the Eulogium Historiarum (vol. iii., ed. F. S. Haydon, 1863), in the Chronicle of Adam of Usk (ed. E. Μ. Thompson, 1876), and in more than one of the continuations of Higden. For the study of Wycliffe’s theology the controversial works of Wodeford and Walden are important, but must necessarily be used with caution.
0Í modern biographies that by Dr G. V. Lechlef (Johann von Wiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1873; partial Engl, trans., by P. Lorimer, 1878, 1881, and 1884) is by far the most comprehensive; it includes a detailed exposition of the reformer’s system, based to a considerable extent on works which were then unpublished. Shirley’s masterly introduction to the Fasciculi Zizaniorum, and Mr F. D. Matthew’s to Ids edition of English Works of Wyclif hitherto unprinted (1880), as well as Mr Creighton’s History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, vol. i., 1882, and Mr H. C. Maxwell Lyte’s account in his History of the University of oxford (1886), add to or correct our stock of biographical materials, and contain much valuable criticism. Wycliffe’s political doctrine is discussed by Mr R. L. Poole (Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval, Thought, 1884); and his relation to Huss is elaborately demonstrated by Dr J. Loserth (∕Zws und Wiclif, Prague, 1884; also Engl, trans.)
Wycliffe’s works are enumerated in a Catalogue by Shirley (Óxf ord, I8ä5). The following are published:— A. Latin.—De officio Pastorali, ed. G. V. Lechler, Leipsic, 1863; Trialogus, ed. G. V. Lechler, Gxford, 1869; portions of the Sumina in Theologia, viz., De Civili Dominio, i., ed. R. L. Poole, 1885, and De Ecclesia, ed. J. Loserth, 1886; De Benedicta Incarnatione, ed. E. Hanis, 1886; Dialogus sive Speculum Ecclesite Militantis, ed. A. W. Pollard, 1886; Sermones, ed. J. Loserth, 2 vols., 1887-88; Polemical Tracts, ed. R. Buddensieg, 2 vols., 1883; De Compositione Hominis, an early work, ed. R. Beer, 1884. All but the first two of these are issued by the Wyclif Society, which was founded in 1882 for the purpose of publishing all the reformer’s unedited works.
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B. English.— Select English Worte, ed. T. Arnold, 3 vols., 1869-71, and English Works hitherto unprinted ed. F. D. Matthew, 1880, chiefly sermons and short tracts, of many of which the authenticity is uncertain. The Wicket (Nuremberg, 1546; reprinted oxford, 1828) is not Included in either of these collections. (R. L. P.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 708 [9:24:708] | |
kp-eb0924-071201-0753m | WYCOMBE, High Wycombe, or Chipping Wycombe, a municipal borough and market-town of Bucks, is situated in the valley of the Wyck and on a branch of the Great Western Railway, 29 miles west-north-west of London, 25 south-east of Oxford, and 10 north of Maidenhead. Notwithstanding many additions to the town within recent years, it still retains many evidences of antiquity, including several mediaeval buildings. The parish church of All Saints, the largest in the county, was rebuilt in 1273 by the abbess and nuns of Godstowe, Oxfordshire, on the site of an earlier Norman structure, and underwent extensive reconstruction in the beginning of the 15th century. The present western tower, 108 feet in height, was completed in 1522, and adorned with pinnacles in 1753. The style of the building is now Early English with Decorated and Perpendicular additions. The interior underwent extensive restoration in 1874, under the direction of the late G. E. Street, and the restoration of the exterior is at present (1888) in progress. For the grammar school, founded in 1555 by the mayor and burgesses of Wycombe, and now under the direction of the charity commissioners, a handsome new building was erected in 1883. The remains of the Norman hall of St John the Baptist, incorporated in the old school building, with its chapel in the Early English style, adjoins the new building. The other principal public buildings are the guild-hall, originally erected by the earl of Shelburne in 1757, and altered and improved in 1859; the literary institute, 1854; the free library, permanently endowed by a subscription of the townspeople after the premises had been presented by J. O. Griffiths; the High Wycombe hospital, established in 1875; the shambles, erected in 1761 on the site of the old hog market; and the South Bucks auction mart, 1887. Some remains still exist of Desborough Castle, supposed to have been erected for defence against the Danes. There are a number of almshouses, including those of Queen Elizabeth, endowed in 1562 out of the revenues of the dissolved fraternity of St Mary. In 1797 a military college was established at Wycombe, which was transferred to Farnham and the junior department to Sandhurst in 1812 and 1813. The Frogmore gardens were presented to the town by J. O. Griffiths in 1877 as public pleasuregrounds. There is a common pasturage, 30 acres in extent, called the Rye. Formerly lace and strawplait making were the staple industries, but they have been superseded by chair-making, which of late years has greatly increased, the number of chairs made annually now amounting to over 1∣ millions. The rise of the industry was due to the beech-woods in the neighbourhood; but, in addition to the cane and rush-bottomed chairs, for which these woods supply the frames, chairs of a finer kind are now also made from walnut, cherry, and other more valuable woods. There are also flour and paper mills. The borough, which is divided into three wards, is governed by a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen councillors. The population of the municipal borough in 1871 (area then 122 acres) was 4811; in 1880 the area was extended to 400 acres, and the population in 1881 was 10,618. The population of the parliamentary borough (area 6395 acres), which existed till 1885, was 10,492 in 1871 and 13,154 in 1881.
From the character of Roman remains found at Wycombe it seems to have been an important Roman station. By the Saxons a fortress called Desborough castle was erected for its defence. At the Conquest it was a borough town, and was then held by Robert Dody or Doyley. In the 9th year of Edward I. it reverted to the crown. The incorporation of the borough is ascribed to Henry I. From the 28th of Edward I. it returned two members to parliament, but in 1867 the number was reduced to one, and in 1885 it was merged in the South or Wycombe Division of the county. Camden, writing in the beginning of the 17th century, says of it, “This town for largeness and beauty compares with the best in the county, and as it is governed by a mayor is justly preferred to the rest.” During the Civil War it was the scene of a skirmish between Prince Rupert and the Parliamentarian forces, in which the latter were defeated.
See Parker’s Antiquities of Wycombe, 1878. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 712 [9:24:712] | |
kp-eb0924-071202-0753m | WYNTOUN, Andrew of, a Scottish monk who flourished at the beginning of the 15th century, was the author of the Orygynale Cronylcil of Scotland. The chronicle, which is in verse and has some historical value from the use made in it of the St Andrews registers, is called “original” because it begins with the beginning of the world, the second chapter giving an account of the creation of man. The history of Scotland is brought down to the death of Robert III. in 1406. Of the chronicler himself nothing is known except what he tells us in his prologue, namely, that he was a canon regular of St Andrews, and prior of Serf’s Inch in Lochleven. The chronicle has been twice carefully edited and annotated,—by Macpherson in 1795, and by David Laing in 1872-79. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 712 [9:24:712] | |
kp-eb0924-071203-0753m | WYOMING, a Territory of the United States, is nearly rectangular in shape, having as its boundaries the 41st and 45th parallels of N. latitude and the 27th and 34th meridians west of Washington. South of it are Colorado and Utah; on the west, Utah, Idaho, and Montana; on the north, Montana; and on the east, Dakota and Nebraska. The area is 97,890 square miles.
The surface is greatly diversified. Its mean elevation is great, being probably not less than 6400 feet. The lowest portions of the Territory are along the northern and eastern borders, where in several places the surface is less than 5000 feet above sea-level, while its highest points exceed 13,000 feet. By far the greater part consists of high plains, which are broken by numerous mountain ranges and ridges, which form parts of the Rocky Mountain system. This system enters the Territory in the south-eastern part, and traverses it in a north-west direction. On the south it consists of three members, the Laramie range, which is crossed by the Union Pacific railroad at Sherman, and the Medicine Bow and Park ranges, which separate branches of the North Platte river. These ranges run out and fall down into the plain in the southern part of the Territory, leaving for 150 miles a broad flat plateau to represent the Rocky Mountain system. The ill-defined summit of this plateau forms the parting between the waters of the Missouri and Colorado. Eastward this plateau slopes to the Great Plains, and westward to the Green river basin. The Union Pacific Railroad traverses it, and therefore the traveller upon this road sees little of the Rocky Mountains except at a distance. Farther north the mountains rise again from this plateau in several ranges. The principal of these is that known as the Wind River range, which in a sense is continued northward beyond the northern boundary of the Territory by the Absτ,roka range. The former contains the most elevated land in the Territory, its highest peak being Frémont’s, with an elevation of 13,790 feet. The latter range is in its southern part a great volcanic plateau, elevated 10,000 to 11,COO feet above the sea, while farther north it is eroded into very rugged mountain forms. About the point where these ranges join, there is a confused mass of mountains of great breadth and considerable height. In this elevated mass rise streams flowing to the Atlantic, the Gulf of California, and the Pacific. The highest peaks of these mountains are those known as the Three Tétons, the most elevated of which, Mount Hayden, has an altitude of 13,691 feet. East of the Wind River and Absaroka ranges, and separated from them by the valley of the Wind River and the Big Horn basin, is the range [9:24:713] known as the Big Horn Mountains, which is reputed to contain peaks having an altitude of 12,000 feet. These ranges form the backbone of the Territory. Eastward from the Big Horn and Laramie ranges stretch the plains in an almost unbroken expanse, gently sloping to the eastward from an altitude of about 6000 feet at the base of the mountains, while south-west of the Wind River range is spread the expanse of the Green river basin, through which flows the principal fork of the Colorado.
The drainage system of Wyoming is somewhat complex. While the mountainous regions are well watered by numerous streams, the broad valleys and the plains are poorly supplied with streams. Many of those which flow full in the mountains during the entire year run dry in summer upon the plains. None of the streams are navigable. The eastern three-fourths of the Territory is drained by the tributaries of the Missouri to the Atlantic. Of this area the North Platte drains the southern portion of the Rocky Mountain system, together with a large part of the plains lying north and east of it. Farther northward and eastward the plains are drained by the Cheyenne river. The eastern face of the Big Horn mountains is drained by the Powder and Tongue rivers, while from its western slopes, and from the eastern slopes of the Wind River and Absaroka ranges, the Wind River, known lower down in its course as the Big Horn, collects the waters. The Yellowstone, heading in the confused mass of mountains about the north end of the Wind River range, flows northward through a beautiful lake, draining the west slope of the Absaroka range. The Snake, or “Mad” river of the early explorers, heading in the same mass of mountains, flows south-westward to seek an exit from them, while the Green, whose sources are in the same elevated country, drains the west slope of the Wind River range, and flows southward through the broad sage-covered expanse known as the Green river basin. In the southwest corner of the Territory is a small area drained by means of Bear river into Great Salt Lake.
The geological structure of Wyoming is even more complicated than its surface features. In the northwestern corner is an area in which volcanic action, as represented in hot springs and geysers, is still alive, while the evidences of volcanic action upon a tremendous scale, in recent geological time, are seen in the form of sheets of lava and volcanic breccia, which are spread over the land, and from which mountain ranges have been carved. Most of this region is comprised in the Yellowstone National Park (q.vf, which has been set apart from settlement by the general Government. Many of the mountain slopes show a succession of the stratified formations, from the Triassic downwards through the series. The plains region is mainly floored by Tertiary and Cretaceous formations, as is also the case with the higher plateaus and with the Green river basin.
The native fauna of Wyoming resembles that of the other northwest Territories. The larger quadrupeds, which were formerly very abundant, and which are now not unfrequently to be met with, are the grizzly, black, and cinnamon bears, the North American panther, the elk, the moose, two or three species of deer, and the antelope. Upon the plains are seen the grey wolf and the coyote, the jack rabbit, the prairie dog, and the gopher. The buffalo, which was formerly extremely abundant upon the plains, is now practically extinct.
The eastern plains are mainly grass-covered, but as one goes westward the grass gradually disappears, and gives place to artemisia and greasewood. Forests are confined almost entirely to the mountains, although the high plains in the Yellowstone Park, in the north-western corner of the Territory, are covered with timber. The forests are composed of quaking aspen upon the lower slopes, succeeded at greater elevations by pines and spruces, the upper limit of timber in the Territory being about 10,000 feet above the sea.
Wyoming has, in common with most of the western States, an arid climate. In the arable regions the rainfall is nowhere sufficient for the needs of agriculture, and irrigation is universally practised. The rainfall ranges in this part of the Territory from 8 to 15 inches, being greater in the eastern part and diminishing westward. Upon the mountains it probably reaches, if it does not exceed, 30 inches annually.
The temperature ranges with the elevation. Upon the plains and plateaus and in the valleys (this comprising nearly all the habitable parts of Wyoming) the annual temperature is between 40° and 50° F. Upon the mountains it diminishes until at an altitude of 10,000 feet it reaches approximately the freezing point.
At the last census (1880) the Territory contained 20,789 inhabitants. In 1870 there were only 9118, showing an increase of 128 per cent. The population is now (1888) estimated at not far from 40,000. As in all frontier communities, a large proportion consists of adult males. In 1880 there were 14,152 males to 6637 females. The proportion of the foreign born was large, there being 5850 of this class to 14,939 natives.
The Territory contains eight counties :—Albany (population 4626), Carbon (3438), Crook (239), Johnson (637), Laramie (6409), Sweetwater (2561), Uinta (2879), and Frémont (formed since 1880). The principal cities are Cheyenne, the capital, which is situated upon the plains, near the east base of the Laramie range (population in 1880, 3456); Laramie City, near the west base of the same range (2696); Rawlins, upon the high plateau forming the continental watershed (1451); and Evanston, in the south-west corner of the Territory (1277).
The industries of Wyoming mainly relate to the raising of cattle and to mining. The former industry is in proportion to the number of inhabitants very large, and has been until recently extremely profitable. The raising of cattle is carried on at slight expense, the cattle being allowed to range freely over the plains, and little provision is made for feeding and shelter, even in winter, as the loss from exposure and starvation is not sufficiently great to warrant the additional expense. In 1880 the number of cattle was returned as 521.213, and sheep as 450,225. In 1887 the report of the governor states that the number of cattle has increased to 753,648, while that of sheep has slightly diminished, being 421,688.
Mines of gold and silver have been worked to a limited extent near the east base of the Wind River range and in the north-western part of the Territory, and also at the extreme south, in the Park range, but the production is insignificant. On the other hand, the coal mines of Wyoming are very valuable; they are mainly situated ifl the southern part of the Territory, at Carbon, Rock Spring, Almy, and Twin Creek, on or near the Union Pacific Railroad. The production in 1886 was 829,355 tons, valued at $2,488,065.
As in other Territories, the government of Wyoming is under the immediate jurisdiction of the United States, the executive and judicial officers being appointed by the president. The treasurer is appointed by the governor. The Territory has a legislature consisting of two houses, the members of which are elected by the people.
The area of Wyoming was in the main included in the Territory of Louisiana, acquired by the United States by purchase from France. The western part was acquired by prior settlement, as was the case with Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It was organized as a Territory in 1868. The progress of settlement has until recent years been very slow, owing to the inhospitable character of the country along its southern border, traversed by the Union Pacific railroad, and to the occupation by Indians of the more fertile districts. Latterly, as the Indians have been removed, settlement has progressed more rapidly. (H. G*. ) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-071301-0758m | WY0N, Thomas (1792-1817), medallist, was born at Birmingham in 1792. He was apprenticed to his father, the chief engraver of His Majesty’s seals, and studied in the schools of the Royal Academy, London, where he gained silver medals in both the antique and the life class; he also obtained a gold medal from the Society of Arts. He was appointed probationary engraver to thè mint in 1811, and soon after engraved his medal commemorative of the peace, and his Manchester Pitt medal. In 1815 he was appointed chief engraver to the mint; but he sank into ill-health, and died at Hastings on September 22, 18.17, at the age of twenty-five.
A memoir of Wyon, with a list of his works, appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for February 1818. His‘younger brother, Benjamin Wyon (1802-1858), and his nephews, Joseph Shepherd Wyon (1836-1873) and Alfred Benjamin Wyon (1837-1884), were also well-known medallists. They successively held the appointment of chief engraver of Her Majesty’s seals. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 713 [9:24:713] | |
kp-eb0924-071302-0758m | WYON, William (1795-1851), medallist, cousin of Thomas Wyon, was born at Birmingham in 1795. In 1809 he was apprenticed to his father, a die-sinker. Removing to London, he studied the works of Flaxman, attended the schools of the Royal Academy, and gained a gold medal from the Society of Arts for a copy of the head [9:24:714] of Ceres, and a second for an original group. In 1816 he was appointed assistant engraver to the mint, and in 1828 chief engraver; in 1831 he was elected associate and in 1838 fu∏ member of the Royal Academy. He executed coinages for George IV., William IV., and Queen Victoria, the Peninsular, Trafalgar, and Cabul medals, the William IV. coronation medal, and those of many learned societies. He died at Brighton on October 29, 1851. A memoir, with a list of his works, by Nicholas Carlisle, was privately issued in 1837. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 713 [9:24:713] | |
kp-eb0924-071401-0759m | WYTTENBACH, Daniel Albert (1746-1820), a famous classical scholar, was born at Bern, of a family whose nobility and distinction he loved to recall. In particular, he was proud of his descent from Thomas Wyttenbach, professor of theology in Basel at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, who numbered the Reformer Zwingli and other distinguished men among his pupils. Wyttenbach’s own father was also a theological professor of considerable note, first at Bern, and then at Marburg. His removal to Marburg, which took place in 1756, was partly due to old associations, for the elder Wyttenbach had studied there under the famous Christian Wolff, and embodied the philosophical principles of his master in his own theological teaching. Soon after the Wyttenbachs settled in Germany the great war broke out, and the region around Marburg suffered severely, so that the scenes and excitement of military life must have powerfully affected the growth of the boy’s somewhat sensitive character. After a careful preliminary education, partly in the schools of Bern and Marburg, partly by private tutors, and always under the eye of a severe but conscientious and affectionate father, young Wyttenbach entered at the age of fourteen the university of Marburg, and passed through a four years’ course there. His parents intended that he should become a Lutheran pastor. The first two years were given up to general education, principally to mathematics, “philology,” and history. The professor of mathematics, Spangenberg, acquired great influence over young Wyttenbach. He is said to have taught his subject with great clearness, and with equal seriousness and piety, often referring to God as the supreme mathematician, who had constructed all things by number, measure, and weight. “Philology” in the German universities of that age meant Hebrew and Greek. These two languages were generally handled by the same professor, and were taught almost solely to theological students. Wyttenbach’s university course at Marburg was troubled about the middle of the time by mental unrest, due to the fascination exercised over him by Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress. Like Bunyan himself, he believed that he was doomed to perdition, and that he had committed the inexpiable sin against the Holy Ghost. The disorder was cured by Spangenberg. The principal study of the third year was metaphysics, which took Wyttenbach entirely captive. The fourth and last year was to be devoted to theology and Christian dogma. Wyttenbach had hitherto submitted passively to his father’s wishes concerning his career, in the hope that some unexpected occurrence might set him free. But he now turned away from theological lectures, and privately devoted his time to the task of deepening and extending his knowledge of Greek literature. His father was wise enough to leave him to follow his own bent. To use Wyttenbach’s own words, he looked up to every Greek book as a temple of wisdom. But the struggle for knowledge was hard, and taxed all his powers. He possessed at the time, as he tells us, no more acquaintance with Greek than his own pupils at a later time could acquire from him during four months’ study. He was almost entirely without equipment beyond the bare texts of the authors. Each author only yielded after a protracted siege. But Wyttenbach was undaunted, and four years’ persistent study gave him a knowledge of Greek such as few Germans of that time possessed. His love for philosophy carried him towards the Greek philosophers, especially Plato. He describes himself as walking about the meadows near Marburg, conning portions of his text of Plato, which he had taken to pieces for easier carriage. During this period Ruhnken’s notes on the Platonic lexicon of Timaeus fell into his hands. Ruhnken was for him almost a superhuman being, whom he worshipped day and night, and with whom he imagined himself as holding converse in the spirit. Taking up the works of Julian, he emended them on the principles of Ruhnken. When Wyttenbach was twenty-two he determined to seek elsewhere the aids to study which Marburg could not afford. His father, fully realizing the strength of his son’s pure passion for scholarship, permitted and even advised him to seek Heyne at Göttingen. From this teacher he received the utmost kindness and encouragement, and he was urged by him to dedicate to Ruhnken the first fruits of his scholarship. Wyttenbach therefore set to work on some notes to Julian, Eunapius, and Aristaenetus, and Heyne wrote to Ruhnken to bespeak his favourable consideration for the work. Before it reached him Ruhnken wrote a kind letter to Wyttenbach, which the recipient “read, re-read, and kissed,” and another on receipt of the tract, in which the great scholar declared that he had not looked to find in Germany such knowledge of Greek, such power of criticism, and such mature judgment, especially in one so young. Wyttenbach was now able with boldness to devote himself to the career of a scholar. He studied with ardour the works of the great scholars of the Netherlands, and in his morning and evening petitions prayed that it might be given him to see Valckenaer and Ruhnken in the flesh. By Heyne’s advice, he now worked hard at Latin, which he knew far less thoroughly than Greek, and we soon find Heyne praising his progress in Latin style to both Ruhnken and Valckenaer. He now wrote to ask their advice about his scheme of coming to the Netherlands to follow the profession of a scholar. Ruhnken strongly exhorted Wyttenbach to follow his own example, for he too had been designed by his parents for the Christian ministry in Germany, but had settled at Leyden on the invitation of Hemsterhuis. Valckenaer’s answer was to the same effect, but he added that Wyttenbach’s letter would have been pleasanter to him had it been free from excessive compliments. These letters were forwarded to the elder Wyttenbach, with a strong recommendation from Heyne. The old man had been himself in Leyden in his youth, and entertained an admiration for the scholarship of the Netherlands; so his consent was easily won. Young Wyttenbach reached Leyden in 1770. According to his own description, he approached the gates of the city with a feeling of religious awe such as might have passed over an ancient visitant to Athens and the Acropolis. As he neared Ruhnken’s door, the words of Homer “surely there is some god within” were in his mind. He was delighted to find the great man entirely free from the pomposity and assumption which had made many of the German professors disagreeable to him. A year was spent with great contentment, in learning the language of the people, in attending the lectures of the great “duumviri” of Leyden, and in collating MSS. of Plutarch. At the end of 1771 a professor was wanted at Amsterdam for the College of the Remonstrants. By the recommendation of Ruhnken, wyttenbach obtained the chair, which he filled with great success for eight years. His lectures took a wide range. Those on Greek were repeated also to the students of the university of Amsterdam (the “Athenaeum”). In 1775 a visit was made to Paris, which was fruitful both of new [9:24:715] friendships and of progress in study. About this time, on the advice of Ruhnken, Wyttenbach began the issue of his Bibliotheca Critica, which appeared at intervals for the next thirty years. The object professed in the preface was to help in rescuing classical studies from the neglect into which they had fallen, by creating an interest in new works of merit, through critical notices, embodying the results of original research by the writer himself. It was in fact a kind of critical review written by one man. The methods of criticism employed were in the main those established by Hemsterhuis, and carried on by Valckenaer and Ruhnken, and the publication met with acceptance from the learned all over Europe. In 1777 the younger Burmann (“Burmannus Secundus ”) retired from his professorship at the Athenaeum, and Wyttenbach hoped to succeed him. When another received the appointment, he was sorely discouraged. Only his regard for Ruhnken and for Dutch freedom (in his own words “Ruhnkeni et Batavae libertatis cogitatio ”) kept him in Holland. For fear of losing him, the authorities at Amsterdam nominated him in 1779 professor of philosophy. Some of his lectures given in this capacity were worked up for publication; in particular a treatise on logic belongs to this period. In philosophy Wyttenbach never shook off the influence of Wolff, and the Kantians were irate because he failed to appreciate their master. In 1785 Toll, Burmann’s successor, resigned, and Wyttenbach was at once appointed to succeed him. His full title was “professor of history and eloquence and Greek and Latin literature.” He had hardly got to work in his new office when Valckenaer died, and he received a call to Leyden. Greatly to Ruhnken’s disappointment, he declined to abandon the duties he had so recently undertaken. In 1787 began the internal commotions in Holland, afterwards to be aggravated by foreign interference. Scarcely during the remaining thirty-three years of Wyttenbach’s life was there a moment of peace in the land. He held entirely aloof from factions, and yearned continually after quiet and reconciliation. About this time two requests were made to him for an edition of the Moralia of Plutarch, for which a recension of the tract “De sera numinis vindicta” had marked him out in the eyes of scholars. One request came from the famous “Societas Bipontina,” the other from the delegates of the Clarendon Press at Oxford. Wyttenbach, influenced at once by the reputation of the university, and by the liberality of the Oxonians in tendering him assistance of different kinds, declined the offer of the Bipontine Society,—very fortunately, since their press was soon destroyed by the French. The fortunes of Wyttenbach’s edition curiously illustrate the text “habent sua fata libelli.” The first portion was safely conveyed to Oxford in 1794. Then war broke out between Holland and Great Britain. Randolph, Wyttenbach’s Oxford correspondent, advised that the next portion should be sent through the British ambassador at Hamburg, and the MS. was duly consigned to him “in a little chest well protected by pitch.” After sending Randolph a number of letters without getting any answer, Wyttenbach in disgust put all thought of the edition from him, and a shudder ran through his frame whenever Plutarch was mentioned. At last, after simultaneous letters had been despatched to a good many delegates of the Clarendon Press, the missing box was discovered in a forgotten corner at Hamburg, where it had lain for two years and a half. The work was finally completed in 1805. Meanwhile Wyttenbach received repeated invitations to leave Amsterdam, which were refused. One came from his native city Bern, another from Leyden, where vacancies had been created by the refusal of professors to swear allegiance to the new Dutch republic set up in 1795, in which Wyttenbach had acquiesced. But he only left Amsterdam in 1799, when on Ruhnken’s death he succeeded him at Leyden. Even then his chief object in removing was to facilitate an arrangement by which the necessities of his old master’s family might be relieved. His removal came too late in life, and he was never so happy at Leyden as he had been at Amsterdam. Before long appeared the ever-delightful Life of David Ruhnken. Though written in Latin, this biography deserves to rank high in the modern literature of its class. It is composed in a style that is lucid, flowing, and graceful, not imitated from any one ancient author, but (a few grammatical matters apart) such as we can imagine that some gifted Roman of the classical time might well have struck out for himself. One of Ruhnken’s friends called it “a Milesian tale,” partly from the fascination of the style, and partly because the book often took such a wide range that Ruhnken was lost amid extended observations springing out of his relation to the classical studies of his age. Of Wyttenbach’s life at Leyden there is little to tell. The continual changes in state affairs greatly disorganized the universities of Holland, and Wyttenbach had to work in face of much detraction; still his success as a teacher was very great. In 1805 he narrowly escaped with his life from the great gunpowder explosion, which killed 150 people, among them the Greek scholar Luzac, Wyttenbach’s colleague in the university. One of Wyttenbach’s letters gives a vivid account of the disaster. During the last years of his life he suffered severely from illness and became nearly blind. After the conclusion of his edition of Plutarch’s Moralia in 1805, the only important work he was able to publish was his well-known edition of Plato’s Phaedo. Many honours were conferred upon him both at home and abroad, and in particular he was made a member of the French Institute. Shortly before his death, he obtained the licence of the king of Holland to marry his sister’s daughter, Johanna Gallien, who had for twenty years devoted herself to him as housekeeper, secretary, and aider in his studies. The sole object of the marriage was to secure for her a better provision after her husband’s death, because as the widow of a professor she would be entitled to a pension. Johanna Gallien was a woman of remarkable culture and ability, and wrote works held in great repute at that time. On the festival of the tercentenary of the foundation of the university of Marburg, celebrated in 1827, the degree of doctor was conferred upon her. Wyttenbach died of apoplexy in 1820, and he was buried in the garden of his country house near Amsterdam, within sight, as he noted, of the dwellings of Descartes and Boerhaave.
Although his work can hardly be set on the same level as that of Hemsterhuis, Valckenaer, and Ruhnken, yet he was a very eminent exponent of the sound methods of criticism which they established. These four men, more than any others after Bentley, laid the foundations of Greek scholarship as.it exists to-day. The precise study of grammar, syntax, and style, and the careful criticism of texts by the light of the best manuscript evidence, were upheld by these scholars in the Netherlands when they were almost entirely neglected elsewhere on the Continent, and were only pursued with partial success in England. Wyttenbach may fairly be regarded as closing a great period in the history of scholarship. He lived indeed to see the new birth of German classical learning, but his work was done, and he was unaffected by it. Wyttenbach’s criticism was less rigorous, precise, and masterly, 'but perhaps more sensitive and sympathetic than that of his great predecessors in the Netherlands. In actual acquaintance with the philosophical writings of the ancients, he has probably never been surpassed. In character he was upright and simple-minded, but shy and retiring, and often failed to make himself appreciated. His life was not passed without strife, but his few friends were warmly attached to him, and his many pupils were for the most part his enthusiastic admirers. Wyttenbach’s biography was written in a somewhat dry and lifeless manner by Mahne, one of his pupils, who also published some of his letters. His Opuscula, other than those published in the Bibliotheca Critica, were collected in two volumes (Leyden, 1823). (J. S. R.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 714 [9:24:714] | |
kp-eb0924-071601-0761m | X
X represents the Phoenician letter Samekh, to which the old Ionian Ξ is singularly close in form. This form is familiar to Greek students, because it belongs to the alphabet that superseded the alphabet of the Euboean type which was first in use at Athens. But the Euboean form of the letter was -f- (see Roehl, I.G.A., No. 372); and this form went with the Euboean alphabet of Chalcis to the western Hellenic world, and passed in Italy into the form X, which survives with us. The history of the symbol in Italy is not, however, perfectly clear, because in the extremely archaic alphabets of Caere and Formello we find not only -Jbut also a symbol ffi, and this has the place of Xι in the Ionian alphabet, whereas + stands after U, instead of in its proper place, which has been thus usurped by this huge and otherwise unknown intruder. There would be no difficulty in supposing that + is only a curtailed portion of the fuller form, and that the two survived for a time side by side in the alphabet, perhaps with some differentiation of value, were it not that this is inconsistent with the ultimate derivation of the Italic alphabet from Chalcis, where the large form certainly does not appear. The name Xι (ksi) is clearly Greek, not, like the names of the letters in general, borrowed from the Phoenician. It is obviously modelled upon Psi, just as Psi was itself modelled upon Pi. The value of the sound in Phoenician was probably a strong sibilant, with a weak guttural preceding. In the old inscriptions of the Aegean Islands—Thera, Naxos, &c.—we find a double symbol K M (i.e., ks); in Naxos we find also X Σ and BΣ (i.e., hs), which indicates a guttural breathing before the s; and in old Attic inscriptions also we find XΣ.
But this same symbol X had another very different value in Greece from l·s, and by this value, i.e., a guttural aspirate, kh or ch, it is familiar to Greek students under the name Chi. This value is confined to alphabets of the Ionian type. In the islands we find KQ or KH, also Φ0 at Thera, digraphs being employed in the same manner as for ks and ps. This same guttural sound is represented in alphabets of the Euboean type under the form j r or ψ, which appears naturally in the Caere alphabet, but in the derived Italian alphabets was retained by the Etruscan only. In Greece it was found in Bceotia and the Peloponnesus: e.g., it appears on the tripod at Delphi set up by the Lacedaemonians to commemorate the victory of Plataeae. But in the Ionic alphabet alone this same symbol has a totally different value, to wit, ps, and to this value the Greeks gave the name Psi. It is noteworthy that the old Attic way of writing this double sound was φ∑. The origin of this second X and that of its companion Y is very uncertain. The Attic writings above mentioned, and the φ Q of Thera, give colour to the idea that X and Φ may be survivals of a ruder alphabet, superseded by the Phoenician, with the values k and p. On the other hand, it does not seem impossible that γ, with the value ch, may be a descendant of the useless φ (koppa), obtained by opening out the circle (Taylor, Alphabet, ii. 93); but the same writer maintains that X is a variation of K, which seems very improbable. It is at least as credible that it is a variant of Samekh, in which the guttural element of the original complex sound superseded the sibilant.
There is nothing noteworthy in the history of x in English. In French, when medial, it has generally passed into ss, as in laisser (from laxare) ; and it has the same sound, even when written, as in soixante. It is frequently found at the end of words owing to a mis-writing, the contraction for final us having been confounded with it, as in plurals, yeux, animaux, &c., where the u has been added again, also in epoux (esponsus), faux (falsus), roux (russus), &c. Not unnaturally the x has been substituted still further, as in prix; in other cases, like croix, we have probably a learned imitation of the Latin. Italian also substitutes ss for x, as in massimo for maximus, lussuria, &c. On x in Spanish, see vol. xxii. p. 350. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-071602-0761m | XALAPA. See Jalapa. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-071603-0761m | XANTHUS, an ancient city of Lycia (q.v.), on the river Xanthus, about 8 miles above its mouth. It is chiefly memorable in history for its two sieges, and the desperate but unavailing resistance made on both occasions. The first siege was by the Persian general Harpagus (see vol. xviii. p. 566), when the acropolis was burned and the inhabitants, with all their possessions, perished (Herod., i. 176). The city was afterwards rebuilt; and in 42 b.c. it was besieged by the Romans under Brutus. It was taken by storm and set on fire; and the inhabitants, refusing to surrender, all perished in the flames. During its prosperity, Xanthus contained many fine temples and other buildings, extensive remains of which, in excellent preservation, were discovered by Sir C. Fellows (Excursion in Asia Minor, 1839). A large collection of marbles, chiefly sepulchral, from Xanthus is now in the British Museum- | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-071604-0761m | XAVIER, Francisco (1506-1552), surnamed the “Apostle of the Indies,” was the youngest son of Juan de Jasso, privy councillor to Jean d’Albret, king of Navarre, and his wife Maria Azpilcueta Xavier, sole heiress of two noble Navarrese families. He was born at his mother’s castle of Xavero or Xavier, at the foot of the Pyrenees and close to the little town of Sanguesa, on 7th April 1506, according to a family register, though his earlier biographers fix his birth in 1497. Following a Spanish custom of the time, which left the surname of either parent optional with children, he was called by his mother’s family name, and grew up tall, strong, healthy, and active both in mind and body, with a lively, cheerful disposition. He showed no taste, however, for the career of arms, and early disclosed a preference for literary pursuits. His father accordingly strained his slender resources to send him, in 1524, to the university of Paris, then much frequented by Spaniards, where he entered the College of St Barbara, and made such rapid progress that he was appointed in 1528 lecturer in Aristotelian philosophy at the Collége de Beauvais. In 1530 he took his degree as master of arts. The same year which saw his nomination as lecturer at the university saw also the arrival there of the man who was to mould his destiny and that of his chamber-mate Pierre le Fèvre, namely, Ignatius Loyola, even then meditating the foundation of his celebrated institute (see Jesuits, vol. xiii. p. 652). Ignatius speedily recognized in Xavier the qualities which made him the first missionary of his time, —and set himself to win him as an associate in his vast enterprise. Xavier, after a protracted resistance, yielded to the spell, and was one of the little band of seven persons, including Loyola himself, who took the original Jesuit vows and founded the company, on 15th August 1534, in the crypt of Notre Dame de Montmartre. They continued in Paris for two years longer, though there is some uncertainty whether Xavier retained his chair; but on 15th November 1536 they started for Italy, to concert with Ignatius (then in Spain, but purposing to join them) plans for a mission to convert the Moslems of Palestine. About Epiphany-tide 1537, after a journey attended with much fatigue and some danger, owing to the disturbed [9:24:717] posture of political affairs, they arrived in Venice, where they found Ignatius awaiting them. As some months must needs elapse before they could sail for the Holy Land, Ignatius determined that the time should be spent partly in hospital work at Venice and later in the journey to Rome, there to obtain their credentials. Accordingly, Xavier devoted himself for nine weeks to the care of the patients in the hospital for incurables, at the end of which time he set out with eight companions for Rome, where Pope Paul III. received them favourably, sanctioned their enterprise, and gave them facilities for obtaining ordination. Returning to Venice, Xavier was ordained priest on Midsummer Day 1537; but the outbreak of war between Venice and Turkey put an end to the Palestine expedition. Hereupon the companions agreed to disperse for a twelvemonth’s home mission work in the Italian cities, and Bobadilla and Xavier betook themselves, first to Monselice, thence to Bologna, where they remained till summoned to Rome by Ignatius at the close of 1538, to consider his plans for erecting the company into a religious order, with a formal constitution under papal sanction. The draft rules were signed by the whole number on 15th April 1539, though it was not till 1540 that the pope’s confirmation was given, nor was it published till 1541. While the remaining members dispersed anew for work in various parts of Italy, Ignatius retained Xavier at Rome as secretary to the new institute. Meanwhile John III., king of Portugal, had resolved on sending a mission to his East Indian dominions, and, at the instance of his minister Govea, applied through his envoy Pedro de Mascarenhas to the pope for six Jesuits to undertake the task. Ignatius could spare but two, and chose Rodriguez and Bobadilla for the purpose; and the former set out at once for Lisbon to confer with the king. Bobadilla, sent for to Rome, arrived there just before Mascarenhas was about to depart, but fell too ill to respond to the call made on him. Hereupon Ignatius on 15th March 1540 told Xavier to leave Rome the next day with Mascarenhas, in order to join Rodriguez in the Indian mission. Xavier complied, merely waiting long enough to obtain the pope’s benediction, and set out for Lisbon, where he was presented to the king, and soon won his entire confidence, attested notably by procuring for him from the pope four briefs, one of them appointing him papal nuncio in the Indies. On 7th April 1541, his thirty-fifth birthday, he sailed from Lisbon with Martin Alphonso de Souza, governor of India, and, refusing all accommodations for the voyage offered him, except a few books and some clothing, lived amongst the common sailors on board, ministering to their religious and temporal needs, especially during an outbreak of scurvy. After five months’ voyage the ship reached Mozambique, where the captain resolved to winter, and Xavier was prostrated with a severe attack of fever. When the voyage was resumed, the ship touched at the Mohammedan town of Melinde, whose sultan told Xavier of the marked decline of Islam. But neither there nor at the island of Socotra, the next point of arrival, where Christianity was equally declining, was the missionary able to remain long enough to attempt any work; and he finally reached Goa on 6th May 1542. Exhibiting his brief to João d’ Albuquerque, bishop of Goa, he asked his permission to officiate in the diocese, and at once began a mission, walking through the streets ringing a small bell, and telling all those attracted by its sound to come themselves, and send their children and servants, to the “Christian doctrine” or catechetical instruction in the principal church. He spent five months actively employed in Goa, where he is stated to have effected much reformation in morals, and then turned his attention to the fishery coast, extending from Cape Comorin to the Paumbum Pass, where he had heard that the Paravas, a tribe engaged in the pearl-fishery, had relapsed into heathenism after having professed Christianity. He laboured assiduously amongst them for fifteen months, and at the end of 1543 returned to Goa to procure colleagues for the mission. Travancore was his next field of action, and there he is said to have succeeded in founding no fewer than forty-five Christian settlements, each with numerous converts. It is to be noted that his own letters contain, both at this time and later on, express disproof of his possession of that miraculous gift of tongues with which he was credited even in his lifetime, and which is attributed to him in the Breviary office for his festival. Not only was he obliged to employ interpreters, but he relates that in their absence he was compelled to use signs only, and he never appears to have displayed any special aptitude for acquiring new languages. He sent a missionary to the isle of Manaar, and himself visited Ceylon, where he proved unsuccessful in an effort to invoke Portuguese interference in a dynastic dispute, and betook himself thence to Meliapur, the traditionary tomb of St Thomas the apostle, which he reached in April 1544, continuing there four months. His next sphere of active work was Malacca, which he reached on 25th September 1545, and where he remained another four months, but had comparatively little success, and abandoned it at last as wholly intractable. While there he addressed a letter to King John of Portugal, urging him to set up the Inquisition in Goa to repress Judaism, and was readily listened to, although the actual erection of the tribunal did not take place till 1560, some years after his own death. After a missionary expedition to Amboyna and other isles of the Molucca group, he returned to Malacca in July 1547, and found three Jesuit recruits from Europe awaiting him. An attack upon Malacca by the sultan of Acheen, which the governor was disinclined to punish, aroused the warlike temper which slumbered in Xavier’s breast, and he compelled the organization of an expedition to chastise the invaders, which proved a triumph and much increased his local influence. While in Malacca he met one Han-Siro, a Japanese exile (known to the biographies as Anger), whose conversation fired him with zeal for the conversion of Japan. But he first paid a series of visits to the scenes of his former labours, and then, returning to Malacca, took ship for Japan, accompanied by Han-Siro, now known as Paul of the Holy Faith. After a perilous voyage they reached Kagoshima, at the south of Kiusiu, the southernmost of the larger Japanese islands, and in the territory of the daimio of Satsuma. Kagoshima was Han-Siro’s birthplace, and he was himself heartily welcomed by his friends, whom he induced to extend their good-will to his companions. The daimio, who desired to secure the Portuguese trade, was friendly at first; but, finding that the merchant vessels preferred the safer anchorage of Firando (or Hirado) far to the north of his fief, he withdrew his permission to preach and threatened converts with the penalty of death. Xavier judged it well to move elsewhither, and travelled on foot to Firando, making some converts on the road, and proving far more successful at Firando itself than in Kagoshima. Thence he proceeded to the capital of the empire, the city then known as Miako, subsequently as Kioto, and now as Saikio or “western capital.” But the mikados or emperors had been little more than puppets under the control of the shoguns or hereditary commanders-in-chief for some centuries before this time, so that Xavier judged that he could work more effectually at the courts of the great daimios than at that of their nominal sovereign. He also noticed that asceticism and poverty had no such attractive power in Japan as they had exercised in India, and determined to try the effect of some measure of pomp and display on his return from Miako. Making but a brief stay [9:24:718] at Firando, he went to Amanguchi (Yamaguchi), capital of Suwo, and there presented himself to the daimio in some state, bringing him valuable presents. He was allowed to preach, and had some success, which encouraged him to proceed to Fucheo, capital of the fief of Bungo (Bugo), where his mission prospered more than anywhere else in Japan; and, feeling that he could now safely leave the work in other hands, he quitted that empire in 1551, intending to attempt next the conversion of China. On board the “Santa Cruz,” the vessel in which he sailed to Malacca, he discussed this project with Diego Pereira, the captain, and devised the plan of persuading the viceroy of Portuguese India to despatch an embassy to China, in whose train he might enter, in despite of the law which then excluded foreigners from that empire. He reached Goa in February 1552, and after settling some disputes which had arisen in his absence obtained from the viceroy consent to the plan of a Chinese embassy and to the nomination of Pereira as envoy. Large sums for the necessary expenses were contributed by the treasury, by Pereira himself, and by subscriptions from private persons interested in the missionary part of the scheme. Xavier left India on 25th April 1552 and betook himself to Malacca, there to meet Pereira and to re-embark on the “Santa Cruz.” But Alvaro d’ Ataide, governor of Malacca, had a private grudge against Pereira, and besides desired the Chinese embassy for himself, and therefore threw difficulties in the way of the expedition, though Xavier, anticipating something of the kind, had procured for him the high office of captaincy of the neighbouring seas, and had also provided himself with stringent orders from the viceroy for the furtherance of his object, with threats of punishment for disobedience. Ataide, however, paid no attention to them, and laid an embargo on the “Santa Cruz.” Xavier, who with characteristic modesty had kept his dignity as papal nuncio private (save for exhibiting the brief to the bishop at Goa on his first arrival in India), determined to avail himself of it now, and desired the vicar-general of Malacca to inform the governor, and to remind him that such as impeded a nuncio in the discharge of his office were subject to excommunication by the pope himself. Ataide paid no more regard to the papal brief than he had done to the viceroy’s letter, and even charged Xavier with having forged it,—if not both documents,—while the people of Malacca sided with him against Xavier and Pereira. At last, however, he agreed to a compromise. The embassy was stopped and Pereira detained, while some of the governor’s people were substituted for as many of the crew of the “Santa Cruz,” in which Xavier and two companions were allowed to proceed. The vicargeneral asked him to take formal leave of the governor; but he refused, saying that they would meet no more till the day of judgment, when Ataide must give account for his resistance to the spread of the gospel, and, shaking the dust of Malacca from his shoes, he embarked 16th July 1552. After a short stay at Singapore, whence he despatched several letters to India and Europe, the ship at the end of August 1552 reached San-chan (Chang-chuang), an island at no great distance from Canton, which served as port and rendezvous for Europeans, not then admitted to trade directly with China. Xavier was seized with fever soon after his arrival, and was, in addition, delayed by the failure of the interpreter he had engaged, as well as by the reluctance of the Portuguese to attempt the voyage to Canton for the purpose of landing him. He arranged for his passage in a Chinese junk and had made all other preparations for starting, when he was again attacked by fever, and died on 2d December 1552. He was buried close to the cabin where he had died, but his body was later transferred to Malacca, and thence to Goa, where it still lies. He was beatified by Paul V. in 1619 and canonized by Gregory XV. in 1621.
The chief authorities for the life of St Francis Xavier are Be Vita Sancti Francisci Xaverii Libri VI., by the Jesuit Torsellino (Tur-sellinus), Rome, 1596, of which there is a vigorous English version, Paris, 1632; another biography by Lucena, Lisbon, 1600; his Letters, published in seven books by the Jesuit Poussines (Pos-sinus), Rome, 1667; a fuller collection of the Leiters by another Jesuit, Menchacha, Bologna, 1795, translated into French by Léon Pagès, Paris, 1854; Faria y Souza, Asia Portuguesa, Lisbon, 1655; Bouhours, Vie de St François Xavier, Paris, 1684; Bartoli, Asia, part i., Rome, 1653; H. J. Coleridge, Life and Letters of St Francis Xavier, London, 1872; while a graphic sketch of the more striking episodes is to be found in Sir James Stephen’s article on the “Founders of Jesuitism,” reprinted in his Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, London, 1849. (R. F. L.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-071801-0763m | XENIA, a city of the United States, the county seat of Greene county, Ohio, is situated in the midst of a rich agricultural region, and on the Pittsburg, Cincinnati, and St Louis and the Dayton, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railways. It is one of the oldest cities of Ohio, having been laid out in 1803. It is the seat of the Methodist Episcopal Xenia college (1850), a Presbyterian theological seminary (1794), and Wilberforce university (1863), this last designed for the education of coloured youth of both sexes. The population in 1880 was 7026. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-071802-0763m | XENOCRATES of Chalcedon, scholarch or rector of the Academy from 339 to 314 b.c., was born in 396. Removing to Athens in early youth, he became the pupil of the Socratic Aeschines, but presently joined himself to Plato, whom he attended to Sicily in 361. Upon his master’s death (347 b.c. ), in company with Aristotle he paid a visit to Hermias at Atarneus. In 339, Aristotle being then in Macedonia, Xenocrates succeeded Speusippus in the presidency of the school, defeating his competitors Menedemus and Heracleides by a few votes. On three occasions he was member of an Athenian legation, once to Philip, twice to Antipater. Soon after the death of Demosthenes in 322, resenting the Macedonian influence then dominant at Athens, Xenocrates declined the citizenship offered to him at the instance of Phocion, and, being unable to pay the tax levied upon resident aliens, was, it is said, sold, or on the point of being sold, into slavery. He died in 314, and was succeeded as scholarch by Polemon, whom he had reclaimed from a life of profligacy. Besides Polemon, the statesman Phocion, Chaeron tyrant of Pellene, the Academic Crantor, the Stoic Zeno, and Epicurus are alleged to have frequented his lectures.
Xenocrates’s earnestness and strength of character won for him universal respect, and stories were remembered in proof of his purity, integrity, and benevolence. Wanting in quickness of apprehension and in native grace, he made up for these deficiencies by a conscientious love of truth and an untiring industry. Less original than Speusippus, he adhered more closely to the letter of Platonic doctrine, and is accounted the typical representative of the Old Academy. In his writings, which were numerous, he seems to have covered nearly the whole of the Academic programme; but metaphysics and ethics were the subjects which principally engaged his thoughts. He is said to have invented, or at least to have emphasized, the tripartition of philosophy under the heads of physic, dialectic, and ethic.
In his ontology Xenocrates built upon Plato’s foundations: that is to say, with Plato he postulated ideas or numbers to be the causes of nature’s organic products, and derived these ideas or numbers from unity (which is active) and plurality (which is passive). But he put upon this fundamental dogma a new interpretation. According to Plato, existence is mind pluralized: mind as a unity, i.e ., universal mind, apprehends its own plurality as eternal, immutable, intelligible ideas; and mind as a plurality, i.e. , particular mind, perceives its own plurality as transitory, mutable, sensible things. The idea, inasmuch as it is a law of universal mind, which in particular minds produces aggregates of sensations called things, is a “determinant” (πέρας ἔ χον), and as such is styled “quantity” (ποσόv) and perhaps “number” (άριθμόs) ; but the ideal numbers are distinct from arithmetical numbers, and the elements of ideal numbers from the elements of arithmetical numbers. Xenocrates, however, failing, as it would seem, to grasp the idealism which was the metaphysical foundation of Plato’s theory [9:24:719] of natural kinds, took for his principles arithmetical unity and plurality, and accordingly identified ideal numbers with arithmetical numbers. In thus reverting to the crudities of certain Pythagoreans he laid himself open to the criticisms of Aristotle, who, in his Metaphysics, recognizing amongst contemporary Platonists three principal groups—(1) those who, like Plato, distinguished mathematical and ideal numbers; (2) those who, like Xenocrates, identified them; and (3) those who, like Speusippus, postulated mathematical numbers only—has much to say against the Xenocratean interpretation of the theory, and in particular points out that, if the ideas are numbers made up of arithmetical units, they not only cease to be principles but also become subject to arithmetical operations. Xenocrates’s theory of inorganic nature was substantially identical with the theory of the elements which is propounded in the Timaeus, 53 C sq. Nevertheless, holding that every dimension has a principle of its own, he rejected the derivation of the elemental solids—pyramid, octahedron, icosahedron, aud cube— from triangular surfaces, and in so far approximated to atomism. Moreover, to the tetrad of simple elements—namely, fire, air, water, earth—he added the πέμπτη οὑσία, ether.
His cosmology, which is drawn almost entirely from the Timaeus, and, as he intimated, is not to be regarded as a cosmogony, should be studied in connexion with his psychology. Soul is a self-moving number, derived from the two fundamental principles, unity (ἕv ) and plurality (δυάs ά όριστοs), whence it obtains its powers of rest and motion. It is incorporeal, and may exist apart from body. The irrational soul, as well as the rational soul, is immortal. The universe, the heavenly bodies, man, animals, and presumably plants, are each of them endowed with a soul, which is more or less perfect according to the position which it occupies in the descending scale of creation. With this Platonic philosopheme Xenocrates combines the current theology, identifying the universe and the heavenly bodies with the greater gods, and reserving a place between them and mortals for the lesser divinities.
If the extant authorities are to be trusted, Xenocrates recognized three grades of cognition, each appropriated to a region of its own, —namely, knowledge, opinion, and sensation, having for their respective objects supra-celestials or ideas, celestials or stars, and infracelestials or things. Even here the mythological tendency displays itself,— νοητά, δοξαστά, and aίσθητά being severally committed to Atropos, Lachesis, and Clotho. Of Xenocrates’s logic we know only that with Plato he distinguished τò καθ’ αὑτό and τò πρόs τι, rejecting the Aristotelian list of ten categories as a superfluity.
Valuing philosophy chiefly for its influence upon conduct, Xenocrates bestowed especial attention upon ethics. The catalogue of his works shows that he had written largely upon this subject; but the indications of doctrine which have survived are scanty, and may be summed up in a few sentences. Things are goods, ills, or neutrals. Goods are of three sorts—mental, bodily, external; but of all goods virtue is incomparably the greatest. Happiness consists in the practice of virtue, the requisite powers and opportunities being presupposed. Hence the virtuous man is always happy, though his happiness cannot be perfect unless he is adequately provided with personal aud extraneous advantages. The virtuous man is pure, not in act only, but also in heart. To the attainment of virtue the best help is philosophy; for the philosopher does of his own accord what others do under the compulsion of law. Speculative wisdom and practical wisdom are to be distinguished. Meagre as these statements are, they suflice to show that in ethics, as elsewhere, Xenocrates worked upon Platonic lines, and that in his theory of the relations of external advantages to happiness, as well as in the technicalities of his exposition, he closely resembled Aristotle.
Xenocrates was not in any sense a great thinker. His metaphysic was a travesty rather than a reproduction of that of his master. His ethic had little which was distinctive. But his austere life and commanding personality made him an effective teacher, and his influence, kept alive by his pupils Polemon and Crates, ceased only when Arcesilaus, the founder of the so-called Second Academy, gave a new direction to the studies of the school.
Bibliography.— D. Van de Wynpersse, De Xenocrate Chalcedonio, Leyden, 1822; C. A. Brandis, Gesch. d. Griechisch-Römischen Philosophie, Berlin, 1853, ii. 2, 1, 19-37; E. Zeller, Philosophie d. Griechen, Leipsic, 1875, ii., 1, 840-842, 862-883; F. W. A. Mullach, Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Paris, 1881, iii. 100-130. (H. JA.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-071901-0764m | XENOPHANES of Colophon, tho reputed founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, is supposed to have been born in the third or fourth decade of the 6th century b.c. An exile from his Ionian home, he resided for a time in Sicily, at Zancle and at Catana, and afterwards established himself in southern Italy, at Elea, a Phocaean colony founded in the sixty-first Olympiad (536-533). In one of the extant fragments he speaks of himself as having begun his wanderings sixty-seven years before, when he was twenty-five years of age, so that he was not less than ninety-two when he died. His teaching found expression in poems, which he recited rhapsodically in the course of his travels. In the more considerable of the elegiac fragments which have survived he ridicules the doctrine of the migration of souls (xviii.), asserts the claims of wisdom against the prevalent athleticism, which seemed to him to conduce neither to the good government of states nor to their material prosperity (xix.), reprobates the introduction of Lydian luxury into Colophon (xx.), and recommends the reasonable enjoyment of social pleasures (xxi.). Of the epic fragments the more important are those in which he attacks the “anthropomorphic and anthropopathic polytheism” of his contemporaries. According to Aristotle, “this first of Eleatic Unitarians was not careful to say whether the unity which he postulated was finite or infinite, but, contemplating the whole firmament,” (or perhaps “the whole world,” for the word οὑρανός is ambiguous), “declared that the One is God.” Whether Xenophanes was a monotheist, whose assertion of the unity of God suggested to Parmenides the doctrine of the unity of Being, or a pantheist, whose assertion of the unity of God was also a declaration of the unity of Being, so that he anticipated Parmenides,—in other words, whether Xenophanes’s teaching was purely theological or had also a philosophical significance,—is a question about which authorities have differed and will probably continue to differ. The silence of the extant fragments, which have not one word about the unity of Being, favours the one view; the voice of antiquity, which proclaims Xenophanes the founder of Eleaticism, has been thought to favour the other.
Of Xenophanes’s utterances about (1) God, (2) the world, (3) knowledge, the following survive. (1) “There is one God, greatest among gods and men, neither in shape nor in thought like unto mortals. . . . He is all sight, all mind, all ear (i.e., not a composite organism). . . . Without an effort ruleth he all things by thought. . . . He abideth ever in the same place motionless, and it befitteth him not to wander hither and thither. . . . Yet men imagine gods to be born, and to have senses, and voice, and body, like themselves. . . . Even so the gods of the Ethiopians are swarthy and flat-nosed, the gods of the Thracians are fair-haired and blue-eyed. . . . Even so Homer and Hesiod attributed to the gods all that is a shame and a reproach among men—theft, adultery, deceit, and other lawless acts. . . . Even so lions and horses and oxen, if they had hands wherewith to grave images, would fashion gods after their own shapes and make them bodies like to their own. (2) From earth all things are and to earth all things return. . . . From earth and water come all of us. . . . The sea is the well whence water springeth. . . . Here at our feet is the end of the earth where it reacheth unto air, but, below, its foundations are without end. . . . The rainbow, which men call Iris, is a cloud that is purple and red and yellow. (3) No man hath certainly known, nor shall certainly know, aught of that which I say about the gods and about all things; for, be that which he saith ever so perfect, yet doth he not know it; all things are matters of opinion. . . . That which I say is opinion like unto truth. . . . The gods did not reveal all things to mortals in the beginning; long is the search ere man findeth that which is better.”
There is very little secondary evidence to record. “The Eleatic school,” says the Stranger in Plato’s Sophist, 242 D, “beginning with Xenophanes, and even earlier, starts from the principle of the unity of all things.” Aristotle, in a passage already cited, Metaphysics, A5, speaks of Xenophanes as the first of the Eleatic Unitarians, adding that his monotheism was reached through the contemplation of the οὑρανός. Theophrastus (in Simplicius’s Ad Physica, 5) sums up Xenophanes’s teaching in the propositions, "The All is One and the One is God.” Timon (in Sext. Empir., Pyrrh., i. 224), ignoring Xenophanes’s theology, makes him resolve all things into one and the same unity. The demonstrations of the unity and the attributes of God, with which the treatise De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia (now no longer ascribed to Aristotle or Theophrastus) accredits Xenophanes, are plainly framed on the model of Eleatic proofs of the unity and the attributes of the Ent, and must therefore be set aside. The epitomators of a later time add nothing to the testimonies already enumerated.
Thus, whereas in his writings, so far as they are known to us, Xenophanes appears as a theologian protesting against an anthropomorphic polytheism, the ancients seem to have regarded him as a philosopher asserting the unity of Being. How are we to understand these conflicting, though not irreconcilable, testimonies? According to Zeller, the discrepancy is only apparent. The Greek [9:24:720] gods being the powers of nature personified, pantheism lay nearer to hand than monotheism. Xenophanes was then a pantheist. Accordingly his assertion of the unity of God was at the same time a declaration of the unity of Being, and in virtue of this declaration he is entitled to rank as the founder of Eleaticism, inasmuch as the philosophy of Parmenides was his forerunner’s pantheism divested of its theistic element. This reconciliation of the internal and the external evidence, countenanced as it is by Theophrastus, one of the best-informed of the ancient historians, and approved by Zeller, one of the most acute of the modern critics, is more than plausible; but there is something to be said on the contrary part. In the first place, it may be doubted whether to a Greek of the 6th century pantheism was nearer than monotheism. Secondly, the external evidence does not bear examination. The Platonic testimony, if it proved anything, would prove too much, namely, that the doctrine of the unity of Being originated, not with Xenophanes, but before him; and, in fact, the passage from the Sophist no more proves that Plato attributed to Xenophanes the philosophy of Parmenides than Theaetetus, 160 D, proves that Plato attributed to Homer the philosophy of Heraclitus. Again, Aristotle’s description of Xenophanes as the first of the Eleatic unitarians does not necessarily imply that the unity asserted by Xenophanes was the unity asserted by Parmenides; the phrase, “contemplating the firmament (or the world), he declared that the One is God,” leaves it doubtful whether Aristotle attributed to Xenophanes any philosophical theory whatever; and the epithet άγ ροικότεροs discourages the belief that Aristotle regarded Xenophanes as the author of a new and important departure. Thirdly, when Xenophanes himself says that his theories about gods and about things are not knowledge, that his utterances are not verities but verisimilitudes, and that, so far from learning things by revelation, man must laboriously seek a better opinion, he plainly renounces the “disinterested pursuit of truth.” If then he was indifferent to the problem, he can hardly be credited with the Eleatic solution. In the judgment of the present writer, Xenophanes was neither a philosopher nor a sceptic. He was not a philosopher, for he despaired of knowledge. He was not a sceptic, if by “sceptic” is meant the misologist whose despair of knowledge is the consequence of disappointed endeavour, for he had never hoped. Rather he was a theologian who arrived at his theory of the unity of God by the rejection of the contemporary mythology. But, while he thus stood aloof from philosophy, Xenophanes influenced its development in two ways: first, his theological monism led the way to the philosophical monism of Parmenides and Zeno; secondly, his assertion that so-called knowledge was in reality no more than opinion taught his successors to distinguish knowledge and opinion, and to assign to each a separate province.
Apart from the old controversy about Xenophanes’s relations to philosophy, doubts have recently arisen about his theological position. In fragments i., xiv., xvi., xxi., &c., he recognizes, thinks Freudenthal, a plurality of deities; whence it is inferred that, besides the One God, most high, perfect, eternal, who, as immanent intelligent cause, unifies the plurality of things, there were also lesser divinities, who govern portions of the universe, being themselves eternal parts of the one all-embracing Godhead. Whilst it can hardly be allowed that Xenophanes, so far from denying, actually affirms a plurality of gods, it must be conceded to Freudenthal that Xenophanes’s polemic was directed against the anthropomorphic tendencies and the mythological details of the contemporary polytheism rather than against the polytheistic principle, and that, apart from the treatise De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia, now generally discredited, there is no direct evidence to prove him a consistent monotheist. The wisdom of Xenophanes, like the wisdom of the Hebrew Preacher, showed itself, not in a theory of the universe, but in a sorrowful recognition of the nothingness of things and the futility of endeavour. His theism was a declaration not so much of the greatness of God as rather of the littleness of man. His cosmology was an assertion not so much of the immutability of the One as rather of the mutability of the Many. Like Socrates, he was not a philosopher, and did not pretend to be one; but, as the reasoned scepticism of Socrates cleared the way for the philosophy of Plato, so did Xenophanes’s “abnormis sapientia” for the philosophy of Parmenides.
Bibliography.— S. Karsten, Xenophanis Colophonii Carminum Reliquite, Brussels, 1830; F. W. A. Mullach, Frag. Phil. Graec., Paris, 1860, i. 99-108; G. Teichmüller, Studien z . Gesch. d. Begriffe, Berlin, 1874, pp. 589-623; E. Zeller, Phil. d. Griechen, Leipsic, 1877, i. 486-507; J. Freudenthal, Ueber d. Theologie d. Xenophanes, Breslau, 1886, and “Zur Lehre d. Xen.,” in Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philos., Berlin, 1888, i. 322-347. For a fuller bibliography, including the controversy about the De Melisso, Xen., et Gorgia, see Ueberweg, Grundriss d. Gesch. d. Philos., Berlin, 1871, i. § 17. See also art. Parmenides. (H. JA.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072001-0765m | XENOPHON, Greek historian and essayist, was born at Athens about 430 b.c. ^[1. The story that he was present at the battle of Delium in 424 b.c., which would carry back the date of his birth to 444 or 443, is now generally rejected, as it is impossible to reconcile it with his own statements about himself in the Anabasis, implying that in 401 b.c. he was a comparatively young man,—we may fairly assume not over thirty years of age. ] He was a citizen of good position, belonging to the order of the knights. Early in life he came under the influence of Socrates. In 401 b.c., being invited by his friend Proxenus to join the expedition of the younger Cyrus against his brother, Artaxerxes II. of Persia, he jumped at the offer, for he was a needy man, and his prospects at home may not have been very good, as the knights were at this time out of favour from having supported the Thirty Tyrants. At the suggestion of Socrates Xenophon went to Delphi to consult the oracle; but his mind was already made up, and he at once crossed to Asia, to Sardis, the place of rendezvous. He joined neither as officer nor as soldier: he went simply to see new countries and peoples out of a spirit of curiosity and love of excitement. Of the expedition itself he has given a full and detailed account in his Anabasis, or the “Up-Country March.” (See Persia, vol. xviii. p. 577.) After the battle of Cunaxa the officers in command of the Greeks were treacherously murdered by the Persian satrap Tissaphernes, with whom they were negotiating an armistice with a view to a safe return. The army was now in the heart of an unknown country, more than a thousand miles from home and in the presence of a troublesome enemy. It was decided to march northwards up the Tigris valley and make for the shores of the Euxine, on which there were several Greek colonies. Xenophon became the leading spirit of the army; he was elected an officer, and he it •was who mainly directed the retreat. To his skill, good temper, and firmness the Greeks seem to have largely owed their safety. He seems indeed to have been an Athenian of the best type, having tact and sympathy, with a singular readiness of resource and a straightforward businesslike eloquence which could both persuade and convince. All through the perils and hardships of the retreat he shared the men’s privations. Part of the way lay through the wilds of Kurdistan, where they had to encounter the harassing guerilla attacks of savage mountain tribes, and part through the highlands of Armenia and Georgia. After a five months’ march they reached Trapezus (Trebizond) on the Black Sea (February 400 B.C.), having given splendid proof of what Greek discipline and spirit could accomplish. When they reached the Euxine a tendency to demoralization began to show itself, and even Xenophon almost lost his control over the soldiery. At Cotyora he aspired to found a new colony; but the idea, not being unanimously accepted, was abandoned, and ultimately Xenophon with his Greeks arrived at Chrysopolis (Scutari) on the Bosphorus, opposite Byzantium. After a brief period of service under a Thracian chief, Seuthes, they were finally incorporated in a Lacedaemonian army which had crossed over into Asia to wage war against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus, Xenophon going with them. Near Pergamum he captured a wealthy Persian nobleman with his family, and the ransom paid for his recovery seems to have been sufficient to provide Xenophon with a fair competency.
On his return to Greece Xenophon served under Agesilaus, king of Sparta, which state was at this time at the head of the Greek world. With his native Athens and its general policy and institutions he was not in sympathy. At Coronea he fought with the Spartans against the Athenians and Thebans, for which his fellow-citizens decreed his banishment. The exile found a home at Scillus in Elis, about two miles from Olympia; there he settled down to indulge his tastes for sport and for literature. It was probably at Scillus that he wrote most of his books; there too he built and endowed a temple to Artemis, modelled on the great temple at Ephesus. After Sparta’s great defeat at Leuctra in 371 b.c., which fatally shattered [9:24:721] its ascendency, Xenophon was driven from his home by the people of Elis. Meantime Sparta and Athens had become allies, and the Athenians repealed the decree which had condemned Xenophon to exile. There is, however, no evidence that he ever returned to his native city. According to the not very trustworthy authority of his biographer (Diogenes Laertius), he made his home at Corinth. He was still living in 357 B.C.;^[2. In the Hellenics (vi. 4, 37) he mentions Tisiphonus, who succeeded Alexander, tyrant of Pherae, in 357 B. C. ] but how much longer he lived we have no means of knowing.
The Anabasis is a work of singular interest, and is brightly and pleasantly written. Xenophon, like Caesar, tells the story in the third person, and there is a straightforward manliness about the style, with a distinct flavour of a cheerful lightheartedness, which at once enlists our sympathies. His description of places and of relative distances is very minute and painstaking. The researches of modern travellers attest his general accuracy.^[3. Major Milligan, in his Wild Life among the Koords, says, "My researches have put beyond doubt the accuracy of his statements, and are of a nature to show the historical, geographical, and ethnological importance which is to be attached to the accounts handed down to posterity by that illustrious writer.” ]
The Cyropaedia, which describes the boyhood and training of Cyrus, hardly answers to its name, being for the most part an account of the beginnings of the Persian empire and of the victorious career of Cyrus its founder. But Xenophon had little or nothing to build on except the floating stories and traditions of the East that had gathered round the figure of the great Persian hero-king. The Cyropaedia contains in fact the author’s own ideas of training and education, as derived conjointly from the teachings of Socrates and his favourite Spartan institutions. A distinct moral purpose, to which literal truth is sacrificed, runs through the work.
The Hellenica, though by no means a first-class historical work, fills a gap by giving the events of the fifty years from 411 to 362 B.c. Thus it includes the downfall of the Athenian empire, the supremacy of Sparta, and the sudden collapse of that power after Leuctra in 371 b.c. It takes up Greek history at the point at which Thucydides’s great work abruptly ends. His credit as an historian has been specially impugned, and it has been suggested that he was much more influenced by his political likes and dislikes than by a love of truth. However that may be, there are certainly serious omissions and defects in the work, which greatly detract from its value. At the time he probably wrote it he was no doubt a strong political partisan and a thorough believer in Sparta. But subsequently a change came over him; and, when he described the terrible reverse at Leuctra, he seems to have felt that Sparta’s prestige had been deservedly destroyed, and that its downfall was heaven’s vengeance on an ungracious and treacherous policy. He always clings to a belief in a divine overrating providence, though in the Hellenica there are unmistakable traces of a pettiness of mind and narrowness of view very far below the dignity of an historian.
The Memorabilia, or “Recollections of Socrates,” is the tribute of an affectionate and admiring disciple who felt that the nobleness of his master’s aims and life was his best defence. The work is not a literary masterpiece: it lacks coherence and unity, and the picture it gives of Socrates fails to do him justice. Still it is an honest piece of work and a labour of love, and, as far as it goes, we may well believe it faithfully describes the philosopher’s manner of life and style of conversation. It was the moral and practical side of Socrates’s teaching which most interested Xenophon; into his abstruse metaphysical speculations he seems to have made no attempt to enter; for these indeed he had neither taste nor genius. It was the philosophy which aims at “a sound mind in a sound body” which specially suited the robust and healthy mind of Xenophon. Moving within a limited range of ideas, he doubtless gives us "considerably less than the real Socrates, while Plato gives us something more.”
Xenophon has left several minor works, some of which are very interesting and give us an insight into the home-life of the Greeks.
The (Economics, which deals with the management of the house and of the farm, presents a pleasant and amusing picture of the Greek wife and of her home duties. She was to be thoroughly domestic, devoted to her household work, without any intellectual aspiration; she must keep up her good looks by healthy exercise, not by rouging or painting. There are some good practical remarks on matrimony and on the respective duties of husband and wife; in these it is assumed that providence has endowed each sex with capacities peculiar to itself and that the highest happiness is to be found in union and in well-organized cooperation. The true sphere of woman is in the faithful and diligent discharge of her home duties; this, above all things, will win her husband’s respect and esteem.
In the essays on horsemanship ('Ι ππική) and hunting (Cynegeticus), Xenophon deals with matters with which he had a thorough practical acquaintance. In the former he gives rules how to choose a horse, and then tells how it is to be groomed and ridden and generally managed. All this has still great interest for the modern reader. We gather from this little work that the ancient Greeks never used the stirrup, nor had they any idea of providing their horses with iron shoes. The book on hunting deals chiefly with the hare, though the author speaks also of boar-hunting and describes the hounds, tells how they are to be bred and trained, and gives specimens of suitable names for them. On all this he writes with the zest of an enthusiastic sportsman, and he observes that those nations will be most likely to be successful in war of which the upper classes have a taste for field-sports.
The Hipparchicus explains the duties of a cavalry officer; it is not, according to our ideas, a very scientific treatise, showing that the art of war was but very imperfectly developed and that the military operations of the Greeks were on a somewhat petty scale. He dwells at some length on the moral qualities which go to the making of a good cavalry officer, and hints very plainly that there must be strict attention to religious duties.
The Agesilaus is a eulogy of the Spartan king, who had two special merits in Xenophon’s eyes: he was a rigid disciplinarian and he was particularly attentive to all religious observances. We have a summary of his virtues rather than a good and striking picture of the man himself.
The Hiero works out the line of thought indicated in the story of the Sword of Damocles. It is a protest against the notion that the “tyrant” is a man to be envied, as having more abundant means of happiness than a private person. This is one of the most pleasing of his minor works; it is cast into the form of a dialogue between Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, and the lyric poet Simonides.
The Symposium, or “Banquet,” is a brilliant little dialogue in which Socrates is the prominent figure. He is represented as “improving the occasion,” which is that of a lively Athenian supper-party, at which there is much drinking, with flute-playing, and a dancing girl from Syracuse, who amuses the guests with the feats of a professional conjuror. Socrates’s table-talk runs through a variety of topics, and winds up with a philosophical disquisition on the superiority of true heavenly love to its earthly or sensual counterfeit, and with an earnest exhortation to one of the party, who had just won a victory in the public games, to lead a noble life and do his duty to his country.
There are also two short essays on the political constitution of Sparta and Athens, written with a decided bias in favour of the former, which he praises without attempting to criticize. Sparta seems to have presented to Xenophon the best conceivable mixture of monarchy and aristocracy.
In the essay on the Revenues of Athens, he offers suggestions for making Athens less dependent on tribute received from its allies: first, more foreign settlers should be attracted to the city by holding out strong commercial inducements and from these a moderate capitation tax should be collected; secondly, more should be made of the silver mines of Laurium by leasing them out to private capitalists, who might work them by slaves purchased with public money and hired at a fixed rate by the lessees. But above all, he would have Athens use its influence for the maintenance of peace in the Greek world and for the settlement of questions by diplomacy, the temple at Delphi being for this purpose an independent centre and supplying a divine sanction.
The Apology, Socrates’s defence before his judges, is rather a feeble production, and in the general opinion of modern critics not a genuine work of Xenophon.
The editions both of Xenophon’s entire and of his separate works, especially of the Anabasis , are very numerous. A few of the best are enumerated below :— (1) Anabasis, text of L. Dindorf, with notes by J. S. Watson, 1868; (2) Memorabilia, edited, with short notes, by J. R. King, 1874 (Oxford); (3) Hellenics, text of C. G. Cobet, 1862; (4) Cyropaedia, from the text of L. Dindorf, with notes by E. H. Barker, 1831. The minor works have been repeatedly edited. Useful editions of the Hiero (London, 1883) and (Economics (London, 1884) have been issued by H. A. Holden. There is an English translation of the entire works by various hands, published in 1831; also a French translation, similarly executed, in 1845. To Sir A. Grant’s monograph on Xenophon, in Blackwood’s “Ancient Classics for English Readers,” the present writer is considerably indebted. (W. J. B.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072101-0766m | XENOPHON of Ephesus. See Romance, vol. xx. p. 635. XERES. See Jerez de la Frontera and Wine, p. 607 above. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072102-0766m | XERXES (Old Persian Khshayârshâ ; in the book of Esther, Ahasuerus), the name of two Achaemenian kings of Persia. Xerxes I., son of Darius Hystaspis and of Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, reigned from 485 to 464 B.C., and is famous for his unsuccessful expedition against Greece (480 b.c.); see Persia, vol. xviii. p. 572 sq. Xerxes II., the son of Artaxerxes I. and grandson of Xerxes I., came to the throne in 424 and was murdered by his brother Secydianus after a reign of a month and a half; ibid., p. 575. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072103-0766m | XIMENES. See Jimenes. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072201-0767m | Y
The history of this symbol has already been given under U. The three symbols U, V, Y are only differentiations of one original form.
The sound of y in Greek was that of French u in “lune” and German ü in “übel.” In Boeotian and Laconian Greek the old u -sound was retained; but it was represented by oυ, a digraph which had also the value of u in other dialects where it arose from phonetic change, e.g., in τoὑs (for τόvs ). The name ὔ ψιλόν was probably given to distinguish it from ὔ διά διφθόγγου,— that is, the same sound, but denoted by oι, which in the 2d century b.c. was beginning to have the value of υ ; just so ἕ ψιλόν is opposed to αι, or ἕ διà διφθόγγου. The difference in sound between the full and the modified u is this: for the first the lips are rounded as much as possible, and the back part of the tongue is raised towards the palate; for the second the rounding of the lips is the same, but the tongue is in the position for i, so that in sounding ü we are sounding i with the lips rounded in addition. This explains the ease with which the ι-sound is produced instead of ü by persons unfamiliar with the latter sound: when an Englishman pronouncing “Müller” says “Miller,” he puts the tongue right for i but omits to round the lips as well. This change has been a regular one in our language. There is no doubt that y (i.e., ü) was a sound of Early English (or Anglo-Saxon), as of the other Teutonic languages, in words like “fÿr” (fire), “synn” (sin); it was the “umlaut” of u , especially when followed in the next syllable by i or e ; so “burg” has for gen. and dat. “byrig,” orig. “burges,” “burge.” But in Middle English y passed into i : thus “fÿr” (sounded as für) came to be sounded as “fir” (feer), and this (as in other cases where ī occurs) was diphthongized in comparatively modern times into “fire” (faior). Thus in the middle of a word y lost its special value; on the other hand, at the beginning of a word it easily passed into the consonant y, the value which it has regularly in modern English. This explains the fact that the English language had no symbol for the sound of French « when this sound was re-introduced into England after the Norman Conquest. Accordingly the French symbol as well as the sound was taken: it is found in words like “muse,” “lute,” sounded as “myyz,” “lyyte.” The yy gradually developed into the iu sound with which we are familiar in “miūz,” “liūt”; but the spelling remained unchanged. It must have been awkward to have the symbol « representing both the full (native) sound and the modified (French) sound; this was partially obviated by borrowing for the full «-sound the French writing ou: e.g., “hūs” was written “house,” without at first any change of sound; but this was not consistently carried out. Much later, at the end of the 16th century, the sound was diphthongized into “haus” (as now), but the spelling (o«) remained. The fact that y and i became indistinguishable led to the use of y at the end of a word instead of i : thus we write “day” instead of the older “dai.”
In Early English we find the symbol 3 (which is a modification of the Anglo-Saxon f) used initially with the value of g , and medially (chiefly before t ) where modern English writes gh, as in light. This is due to French scribes, who used the French (i.e., our modern) form of g for the g -sound, and then the 3 for the sound which had been weakened in Anglo-Saxon from g to y, as in yard (our yard) for original gard (Norse garth ; in North English Aysgarth and Gatesgarth). About the 15th century this same symbol was mistaken for 2, and as such it is still occasionally employed in cursive, when 3 is written instead of 2. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 722 [9:24:722] | |
kp-eb0924-072202-0767m | YACHOW-FU, a prefectural city in the Chinese province of Sze-ch’uen, is situated in 30° 4' N. lat. and 103° 4' E. long., and is a place of some antiquity and note, being first mentioned in history during the Chow dynasty (1122- 255 b.c.). It is prettily placed in a valley surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, on the banks of the river Ya. The town is large, populous, and busy, and owes its importance to the fact that it stands at the parting of the tea and tobacco trade route to Tibet via Tatsien-lu and the cotton trade route to western Yun-nan via Ningyuen-Fu. Yachow-Fu is the seat also of a considerable silk manufacture; and in its immediate neighbourhood there exist both coal and iron. The city wall measures 2 miles in circumference, and is pierced by four gates. The population is estimated at about 40,000. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 722 [9:24:722] | 30 4' N 103 4' E |
kp-eb0924-072203-0767m | YACHTING is the sport of racing in yachts^[1. The English word yacht is the Dutch jueht, jagt, from juchten, “to hurry,” “to hunt.” ] and boats with sails for money or plate, and also the pastime of cruising for pleasure in sailing or steam vessels. The history of yachting is the history of yacht-racing, inasmuch as competition improved yachts just as horse-racing improved horses. It dates from the beginning of the 19th century; for, although there were sailing yachts long before, they were but few, and belonged exclusively to princes and other illustrious personages. For instance, in the Anglo-Saxon period Athelstan had presented to him by the king of Norway a magnificent royal vessel, the sails of which were purple and the head and deck wrought with gold, apparently a kind of state barge. Elizabeth had one, and so has every English sovereign since. During her reign a pleasure ship was built (1588) at Cowes, so that the association of that place with the sport goes back three hundred years. In 1660 Charles II. was presented by the Dutch with a yacht named the “Mary,” until which time the word “yacht” was unknown in England. The Merrie Monarch was fond of sailing, for he designed a yacht of 25 tons called the “Jamie,” built at Lambeth in 1662, as well as several others later on. In that year the “Jamie” was matched for £100 against a small Dutch yacht, under the duke of York, from Greenwich to Gravesend and back, and beat her, the king steering part of the time—apparently the first record of a yacht match and of an amateur helmsman.
The first authentic record of a sailing club is in 1720, when the Cork Harbour Water Club, now known as the Royal Cork Yacht Club, was established in Ireland, but the yachts were small. Maitland, in his History of London (1739), mentions sailing and rowing on the Thames as among the amusements then indulged in; and Strutt, in his Sports and Pastimes (1801), says that the Cumberland Society, consisting of gentlemen partial to this pastime, gave yearly a silver cup to be sailed for in the vicinity of London. The boats usually started from Blackfriars Bridge, went up the Thames to Putney, and returned to Vauxhall, being, no doubt, mere sailing boats and not yachts or decked vessels. From the middle to the end of the 18th century yachting developed very slowly: although matches were sailed at Cowes as far back as 1780, very few yachts of any size, say 35 tons, existed in 1800 there or elsewhere. In 1812 the Royal Yacht Squadron was established by fifty yacht-owners at Cowes and was called the Yacht Club, altered to the Royal Yacht Club in 1820; but no regular regatta was held there until some years later. The yachts of the time were built of heavy materials, like the revenue cutters, full in the fore body and fine aft; [9:24:723] but it was soon discovered that their timbers and scantlings were unnecessarily strong, and they were made much lighter. It was also found that the single-masted cutter was more weatherly than the brigs and schooners of the time, and the former rig was adopted for racing, and, as there was no time allowance for difference of size, they were all built of considerable dimensions. Among the earliest of which there is any record were the “Pearl,” 95 tons, built by Sainty at Wivenhoe near Colchester in 1820, for the marquis of Anglesey, and the “Arrow,” 84 tons, originally 61 feet 9 ½ inches long and 18 feet 5¼ inches beam, built by Joseph Weld in 1822, which is still extant as a racing yacht, having been rebuilt and altered several times, and again entirely rebuilt in 1887-88. The Thames soon followed the example of the Solent and established the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1823, the Clyde founding the Royal Northern Yacht Club in 1824, and Plymouth the Royal Western in 1827. In this year the Royal Yacht Squadron passed a resolution disqualifying any member who should apply steam to his yacht,—the enactment being aimed at T. Assheton Smith, an enthusiastic yachtsman and fox-hunter, who was having a paddle-wheel steam yacht called the “Menai” built on the Clyde. In 1830 one of the largest cutters ever constructed was launched, viz., the “Alarm,” built by Inman at Lymington for Joseph Weld of Lulworth Castle, from the lines of a famous smuggler captured off the Isle of Wight. She was 82 feet on the load line by 24 feet beam, and was reckoned of 193 tons, old measurement, in which length, breadth, and halfbreadth (supposed to represent depth) were the factors for computation. Some yachtsmen at this time preferred still larger vessels and owned square-topsail schooners and brigs like the man-o’-war brigs of the day, such as the “Waterwitch,” 381 tons, built by White of Cowes, in 1832, for Lord Belfast, and the “Brilliant,” barque, 493 tons, belonging to J. Holland Ackers, who invented a scale of time allowance for competitive sailing. In 1834 the first royal cup was given by William IV. to the Royal Yacht Squadron—a gift which has been continued ever since (except in 1862, when it was dropped for one year, owing to the death of the Prince Consort), and in recent years supplemented by similar gifts to other clubs. In 1836 the Royal Eastern Yacht Club was founded at Granton near Edinburgh; in 1838 the Royal St George’s at Kingstown and the Royal London; in 1843 the Royal Southern at Southampton and the Royal Harwich; in 1844 the Royal Mersey at Liverpool and the Royal Victoria at Ryde. The number of vessels kept pace with the clubs—the fifty yachts of 1812 increasing nearly tenfold before the middle of the century, which was the critical epoch of yacht-building.
In 1848, after J. Scott Russell had repeatedly drawn attention to the unwisdom of constructing sailing vessels on the “cod’s head and mackerel tail” plan, and had enunciated his wave-line theory, Mare built at Blackwall an entirely new type of vessel, with a long hollow bow and a short after body of considerable fulness. This was the iron cutter “Mosquito,” of 59 feet 2 inches water line, 15 feet 3 inches beam, and measuring 50 tons. Prejudice against the new type of yacht being as strong as against the introduction of steam, there were no vessels built like the “Mosquito,” with the exception of the “Volante,” 59 tons, by Harvey of Wivenhoe, until the eyes of English yachtsmen were opened by the Americans three years later. About this period yacht-racing had been gradually coming into favour in the United States, the first yacht club being founded at New York in 1844 by nine yacht-owners; and in 1846 the first match between yachts in the States was sailed, 25 miles to windward and back from Sandy Hook lightship, between J. C. Stevens’s new centre-board sloop “Maria,” 170 tons, 100 feet water line and 26 feet 8 inches beam, with a draught of 5 feet 3 inches of water, and the “Coquette,” schooner, 74 tons, belonging to J. H. Perkins, the latter winning; but the appearance of the “Maria,” which had a clipper or schooner bow, like that of the newest racing cutters of 1887-1888, did much for yachting in America. Stevens then commissioned George Steers of New York, builder of the crack pilot schooners, to construct a racing schooner to visit England in the year of the great exhibition, and the result was the “America” of 170 tons. Like the “Mosquito,” she had a very long and hollow bow, with considerable fulness aft. She crossed the Atlantic in the summer of 1851, but failed to compete for the queen’s cup at Cowes in August, although the club for that occasion threw the prize open to all the world, as her owner declined to concede the usual time allowance for difference of size. The members of the Yacht Squadron, not wishing to risk the reproach of denying the stranger a fair race, decided that their match for a cup given by the club, to be sailed round the Isle of Wight later on in the same month, should be without any time allowance. The “America,” thus exceptionally treated, entered and competed against fifteen other vessels. The three most dangerous competitors being put out through accidents, the “America” passed the winning-post 18 minutes ahead of the 47-ton cutter “Aurora,” and won the cup; but, even if the time allowance had not been waived, the American schooner yacht would still have won by fully a couple of minutes.
The prize was given to the New York Yacht Club and constituted a challenge cup, called the America cup, for the yachts of all nations, by the deed of gift of the owners of the winner. Not only was the “America” as great a departure from the conventional British type of yacht as the “Mosquito,” but the set of her sails was a decided novelty. In England it had been the practice to make them baggy, whereas those of the “America” were flat, which told materially in working to windward. The revolution in yacht designing and canvassing was complete, and the bows of existing cutters were lengthened, that of the “Arrow” among others. The “Alarm” was also lengthened and turned into a schooner of 248 tons, and the “Wildfire,” cutter, 59 tons, was likewise converted. Indeed there was a complete craze for schooners, the “Flying Cloud,” “Gloriana,” “Lalla Rookh,” “Albertine,” “Aline,” “Egeria,” “Pantomime,” and others being built between 1852 and 1865, during which period the centre board, or sliding keel, was applied to schooners as well as sloops in America. The national or cutter rig was nevertheless not neglected in England, for Hatcher of Southampton built the 35-ton cutter “Glance ”—the pioneer of the subsequent 40-tonners—in 1855, and the “Vampire” —the pioneer of the 20-tonners—in 1857, in which year Weld also had the “Lulworth,” an 82-ton cutter of comparatively shallow draught, constructed at Lymington. At this time too there came into existence a group of cutters, called “flying fifties” from their tonnage, taking after the “Mosquito” as their pioneer; such were the “Extravaganza,” “Audax,” and “Vanguard.” In 1866 a large cutter was constructed on the Clyde called the “Condor,” 135 tons, followed by the still larger “Oimara,” 163 tons, in 1867. In 1868 the “Cambria” schooner was built by Ratsey at Cowes for Ashbury of Brighton, and, having proved a successful match-sailer, was taken to the United States in 1870 to compete for the America cup, but was badly beaten, as also was the “Livonia” in 1871.
The decade between 1870 and 1880 may be termed the Golden Age of yachting, inasmuch as the racing fleet had some very notable additions made to it, of which it will suffice to mention the schooners “Gwendolin,” “Cetonia,”
[9:24:724]
“Corinne,” “Miranda,’’and “Waterwitch;” the large cutters “Kriemhilda,” “Vol au Vent,” “Formosa,” “Samaena,” and “Vanduara;” the 40-tonners “Foxhound,” “Myosotis,” and “Norman;” the 20-tonners “Vanessa” (Hatcher’s masterpiece), “Quickstep,” “Enriqueta,” “Louise,” and “Freda;” and the yawls “Florinda,” “Corisande,” “Jullanar,” and “Latona.” Lead, the use of which commenced in 1846, was entirely used for ballast after 1870 and placed on the keel outside. Of races there was a plethora; indeed no less than 400 matches took place in 1876, as against 63 matches in 1856, with classes for schooners and yawls, for large cutters, for 40-tonners, 20-tonners, and 10-ton-ners. The sport too was better regulated, and was conducted on a uniform system: the Yacht-Racing Association, established in 1875, drew up a simple code of laws for the regulation of yacht races, which was accepted by the yacht clubs generally, though a previous attempt to introduce uniformity, made by the Royal Victoria Yacht Club in 1868, had failed. The Association adopted the rule for ascertaining the size or tonnage of yachts which had been for many years in force, known as the Thames rule; but in 1879 they altered the plan of reckoning length from that taken on deck to that taken at the load water line, and two years later they adopted an entirely new system of calculation. Subsequently to these repeated changes yachtracing gradually waned, the new measurement exercising a prejudicial effect on the sport, as it enabled vessels of extreme length, depth, and narrowness, kept upright by enormous masses of lead on the outside of the keel, to compete on equal terms with vessels of greater width and less depth, in other words, smaller yachts carrying an inferior area of sail. Of this type are the yawls “Lorna” and “Wendur,” the cutters “May,” “Annasona,” “Sleuth-hound,” “Tara,” and “Marjorie,”—the most extreme of all being perhaps the 40-tonner “Tara,” which is six times as long as she is broad, and unusually deep, with a displacement of 75 tons, 38 tons of lead on her keel, and the sail spread of a 60-ton-ner like “Neva.”
In 1884 two large 80-ton cutters of the above type were built for racing, viz., the “Genesta” on the Clyde and the “Irex” at Southampton. Having been successful in her first season, the former went to the United States in 1885 in quest of the America cup; but she was beaten by a new yacht, called the “Puritan,” built for the purpose of defending it, with a moderate draught of 8 feet 3 inches of water, considerable beam, and a deep centre-board. The defeat of the “Genesta” is not surprising when it is recollected that she drew 13 feet of water, had a displacement or weight of 141, as against the “Puritan’s” 106 tons, and a sail area of 7887 square feet to the American’s 7982,—a greater mass with less driving power; but she did not leave the States empty-handed, as she won and brought back the Cape May and Brenton Reef challenge cups, though they were wrested from her by the “Irex” in the following year. The same thing happened to the “Galatea,” which was beaten by the “Mayflower” in 1886. In 1887 a new cutter, called the “Thistle,” was built on the Clyde to try to win back the America cup; but, although built very differently from the “Genesta” and “Galatea,” i . e., of a much greater width than modern English racing yachts generally, the “Thistle,” when matched with the new centre-board “Volunteer,” had no better fortune than her predecessors. These new American racing vessels are something very different from the old flat-bottomed sloop “Maria,” with one head-sail and a trivial draught of water, inasmuch as they are lead-ballasted cutters with two head-sails and a draught of nearly 10 feet of water, with the additional advantage of a centre-board descending as much as 8 or 10 feet below the keel. In this connexion it is noteworthy that a prize won by a fixed-keel schooner should be defended by centre-board craft with a single mast.
From 1887 an entirely new system of measurement for competitive sailing has been adopted in the United Kingdom, the old plan of measuring the hull having given way to the more rational one of taking the length on the waterline and the sail area of the vessel as the factors for rating. This leaves naval architects free to adopt a long and narrow or a short and “beamy” hull.
Yacht - racing as at present conducted is simple and easily managed. A course is chosen by the committee of the club giving the prizes, averaging for first-class vessels 40 or 50 nautical miles in length, such as the old queen’s course from Cowes eastward to the Nab lightship, back past Cowes to Lymington, and returning to the starting-post. The competitors, i.e., cutters, yawls, and schooners,—cutters sailing at their full, yawls at four-fifths, and schooners at three-fourths of their tonnage or rating—cruise about under way in readiness for crossing an imaginary line between the club-house or committee vessel and a mark-boat, which forms the starting as well as winning place, on the signal being given. No time is allowed at the start, but only at the finish, and consequently there is a good deal of manoeuvring to get across the line first and to windward. The yachts make the best of their way onwards, running if the wind is abaft them, reaching if it is on the beam, and close-hauled if it is foul, the greatest skill being shown in cross-tacking and getting the weather-gauge. When close-hauled and reaching, the ordinary fore-and-aft sail (see Sail, Seamanship, and Shipbuilding) is used; but when going free a large racing sail called a spinnaker is set on a long boom projecting from the foot of the mast at right angles to the vessel. This sail, which is a triangular one, extends from the topmasthead to the deck, on the opposite side to that occupied by the main boom, though occasionally shifted to the bowsprit end. After leaving all the marks on the port or starboard hand, as may be directed in their instructions, the competing yachts arrive at the winning-place generally in single file, the moment at which each competitor passes the line being noted by a time-keeper. It is then ascertained whether any and which vessel has saved her time allowance, which varies according to the length of the course, and the first which has done so is declared to have won. The amount of prize money gained by the most successful vessel of the season—almost always a cutter— generally exceeds 1000 sovereigns, exclusive of cups or plate. The expense of racing is enormous; in the case of an 80 or 100-ton cutter it amounts to fully £2000 or £3000 a year. The cost of cruising is of course not so great, the wages of non-racing crews (which are much smaller in number) being less, and averages perhaps £10 a ton. There are not such frequent renewals of sails; there are not so many breakages of spars, no entrance fees, and no “winning money” to pay the crew, nor any of the thousand and one extras which go to swell the yearly account of the racing owner. Racing yachts make good cruisers if their spars are shortened and their wings clipped; and it is a very common practice to turn an ex-racing cutter into a yawl, by shortening her boom and adding a mizzenmast and mizzen-sail to her counter. The yawl rig is comfortable for cruising, but not so successful for racing as the cutter. The speed of yachts varies according to their length, and this is one reason why an allowance in time should be given by a large yacht to a smaller one. As instances of pace it is on record that the “Arrow” in 1858 sailed 45 knots in 4 h. 19 m., and 50 knots in 1872 in 4 h. 40 m. In the latter year the “Kriemhilda” did 50 knots in 4 h. 37 m., while the “Marjorie” did the same distance in 4 h. 26 m., and the "Samaena” in 4 h. 15 m. in 1883; the “Lorna” (yawl) in 4 h. 14 m., and the “Irex” in 4 h. 7 min., both in 1885, —all these distances being sailed inside the Isle of Wight, irrespective of the state of the tide. A greater pace has been developed by schooners in bursts of speed with a fair tide and half a gale of wind behind them, but in racing inside the Isle of Wight the “Egeria” in 1870 did 50 knots in 4 h. 27 m., the “Olga” in 4 h. 25 m. in 1875, the “Enchantress” in 4 h. 18 m. in 1879. which is not so quick as the cutters.
As to the number of yachts now afloat, cruisers as well as racers, the British yacht fleet, which in 1850 consisted of 500 sailing and 3 steam vessels, now numbers 2209 sailing yachts, of 64,051 tons, and 700 screw steam yachts, of 68,667 tons, or a gross total of 2909 yachts, of 132,718 tons—in round numbers 3000 yachts, allowing for small craft not included in the above total. They are constructed of wood, iron, or steel—this last gradually coming to the front in the pleasure fleet as well as in the mercantile marine and royal naVy. Next to Great Britain the United States possesses the largest number afloat, amounting to nearly if not quite 1200 yachts; and, if to the foregoing are added the yachts of other countries included in Lloyd’s list, a grand total of upwards of 5000 is reached. While the taste for sailing vessels has made marked strides since 1850, that for steam yachts has made still more extraordinary [9:24:725] progress, one noteworthy feature being the increase in their size, and another their enormous prime cost. More than thirty of those recently built exceed 500 tons, while double that number range from 300 to 500 tons; two or three even exceed 1000 tons each.
Admiralty warrants are granted to clubs and their members to fly the white, blue, or red ensign with device on it, such yachts being registered according to the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Acts. The white man-of-war or St George’s ensign, used by British war-ships, is flown by the Royal Yacht Squadron alone of yacht clubs. The ordinary red ensign of the merchant navy may be flown by any English vessel without permission of Government, as it is the national flag. Yachts with Admiralty warrants are entitled to certain privileges, such as exemption from excise and some other dues; they may enter Government harbours without paying dues, and may make fast and lie to Government buoys when these are not required by any of H. Μ. ships; they need not have their names painted on their sterns, though it is better that they should; and their masters need not hold Board of Trade certificates.
Literature.—Vanderdecken, Yachts and Yachting (1862); H. C. Folkard, The Sailing Boat (1870); Stonehenge, British Rural Sports (1876); Dixon Kemp, Yacht Architecture (1885), Yacht Designing (1876), and Yacht and Boat Sailing (1878-86); Yacht-Racing Calendar (annual); Lloyd's Yacht Register (annual); and Hunt’s Yacht List (annual). (E. D. B.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 722 [9:24:722] | |
kp-eb0924-072501-0770m | YAK. This animal is the Bos grunniens of Linnaeus and all subsequent zoologists, so called on account of the pig-like grunting sounds it makes. It is structurally more closely allied to the common ox than to the bison, with which group of the Bovidae it has been sometimes erroneously associated. It is only found in the lofty plateau of Asia between the Altai Mountains and the Himalayas, and occurs both wild and as the ordinary domestic animal of the inhabitants of that region, supplying milk, food, and raiment, as well as being used as a beast of burden. The wild yaks inhabit the most inaccessible parts of the mountains, ranging up to an elevation of 20,000 feet,—higher it is said, than any other animal,—delighting in extreme cold, and finding their sustenance in the coarse, wiry grass which is almost the only vegetable production of those desolate regions. They cannot live to the south of the
Himalayas beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the snow. Their size is that of a small ox. The horns are long, nearly cylindrical, smooth, and pointed at the ends, and with a peculiar and characteristic curve, being directed at first outwards, then upwards, forwards, and inwards, and finally a little backwards. Some of the domestic yaks are hornless. The most remarkable external character is the excessive growth and peculiar distribution of the hairy covering. The upper parts of the body and sides are clothed with a thick, soft, woolly hair, more fully developed along the middle of the back, especially on the shoulders, where it forms a great bunch; on the sides it is comparatively short. From the upper parts of the limbs and the whole of the lower surface of the body a thick growth of long, straight pendent hair descends, in old animals sweeping the ground and almost concealing the somewhat short legs. The tail is profusely covered with a thick mass of such hairs. The calves are at first covered only with a soft, shortish woolly hair, of nearly uniform length all over. Domestic yaks vary considerably in size and appearance according to their treatment and the purpose for which they are bred. The finest are those used for carrying the native chiefs. Those employed for ploughing are very inferior-looking animals. They vary also in colour. The wild animals are nearly uniformly black; the domestic yaks are often quite white. It is not uncommon to see the long hair on the ridge of the back, that on the tail, and the long flowing hair of the under parts white, whilst all the rest of the animal is black. The tails of the domestic yaks are used as ornamental standards by the Tartars, and are largely imported into India as chowries or fly-flaps. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 725 [9:24:725] | |
kp-eb0924-072502-0770m | YAKUTSK, a province of Eastern Siberia, which includes nearly the whole of the basin of the Lena, and covers an area of 1,517,127 square miles (nearly one-third of Siberia and almost one-fifth of the entire Russian empire). It has the Arctic Ocean on the N., Yeniseisk on the W., Irkutsk, Transbaikalia, and Amur on the S., and is separated from the Pacific (Sea of Okhotsk) only by the narrow Maritime Province (see vol. xxii. pl. I.).
The Vitim plateau, from 2500 to 3500 feet in altitude, and bordered on the south-east by the Stanovoi Mountains, occupies the south-eastern portion of the province. Its moist, elevated valleys, intersected by ranges of flat, domeshaped hills, which rise nearly 1000 feet above the plateau, are unsuited for agriculture, and form an immense desert of forest and marsh, visited only by Tungus hunters, save in the south-west, where a few settlements of gold-miners have lately sprung up. The high border-ridge of the plateau (see Siberia) stretches from the South Muya Mountains towards the north-east, thus compelling the river Ałdan to make its great bend in that direction. The ridge is almost entirely unknown, having been crossed by only two geographers at points more than 500 miles apart. The alpine country fringing the plateau all along its northwestern border is better known in the south-west, where rich gold-mines are wrought in the spurs between the Vitim and the Lena; and farther north-east it has been crossed by several geographers (Middendorff, Erman, the Siberian expedition) on their way from Yakutsk to the Sea of Okhotsk. The Lena, in that part of its course where it flows north-east, waters the outer base of this alpine region. It is a wild land, traversed by several chains of mountains, all having a north-eastern direction and intersected by deep, narrow valleys, where wild mountain streams flow amidst immense boulders and steep cliffs. The whole is covered with dense forests, through which none but the Tunguses can find their way, and they only by means of marks made on the trees. The summits of the mountains, ranging from 4000 to 6000 feet, mostly rise above the limits of tree vegetation, but in no case pass the snow-line. Summits and slopes alike are strewn with crystalline rock débris, mostly hidden under thick layers of lichens, where only the larch, which sends out its roots horizontally, can find support and sustenance. Birch and aspen grow on the lower slopes; and where strips of alluvium have been deposited in the narrow bottoms of the valleys thickets of poplar and willow make their ap pearance, or a few patches of grassy soil are occasionally found. These last, however, are so rare that all of them are known to the gold-diggers for scores of miles around their settlements, and hay has to be brought at considerable cost from the lowlands. All necessaries of life for the gold-diggings have to be shipped from Irkutsk down the Lena, and deposited at entrepôts, whence they are [9:24:726] transported in winter by means of reindeer to their destination. A line drawn south-west and north-east, from the mouth of the Vitim towards that of the Aldan, separates the mountain tracts from the elevated plains (from 1500 to 2000 feet) which fringe the highlands all the way from the upper Lena to Verkhne-Kołymsk, and probably to the mouth of the Kolyma. Immense and sometimes marshy meadows extend over those plains in the south-west; farther north mosses and lichens are the prevalent vegetation. The surface is much furrowed by rivers and diversified by several mountain-chains (Verkhoyansk, Tas-karyktakh, Kołymsk, and Ałazeya). Little is known as to the real character of these mountains, although they are figured on maps as isolated ridges shooting north-west from the highlands, between the chief rivers which flow into the Arctic Ocean. Beyond the elevated plains vast tundras, covered with mosses and lichens, stretch to the shores of the ice-bound ocean; only a few trees succeed in the struggle for a miserable existence, though some isolated groups penetrate farther north along the courses of the Lena, the Indighirka, and the Kolyma, almost reaching in the first-named valley the seventy-second degree of north latitude.
The Arctic coast is indented by several bays—Borkhaya and Yana to the east of the wide Lena delta, and Omul-yakh, Kolyma, and Tchaunskaya still farther to the east. Islands have been explored as far as 78° N. lat. These fall into three groups,—the Lyakhovskiye, the Anjou or New Siberian, and the De Long Islands. The Medvyezhie (Bear) Islands off the Kolyma and the two Ayun Islands in Tchaunskaya Bay are merely littoral. Wrangel’s Land seems to be the outer island of a great and as yet unknown archipelago. The entire coast of Yakutsk is full of memorials of the courageous explorations made in 1735-41 by Minin, Lapteff, and Prontchischeff in small boats, without any of the modern appliances for Arctic explorations, and Tchaunskaya Bay recalls the loss of Shałauroff's expedition. The prospects of regular navigation recently raised by Nordenskjöld’s bold circumnavigation of Asia seem unlikely to be fully realized, the ice apparently having never again been in so favourable a condition as in 1878- 79. Every year, however, a narrow passage close by the coast is left almost free of ice, enabling a ship or two to reach the estuary of the Yenisei, or even the delta of the Lena.
The great artery of Yakutsk, the Lena, rises on the western slope of the Baikal Mountains, its sources being separated only by a narrow ridge from the great Siberian lake. It soon issues from the mountain valleys, and flows over the elevated plains, where it has carved a deep channel between horizontal layers of Old Red Sandstone and further on of contorted beds of limestone. As far as Yakutsk it maintains its north-eastern direction, with but one great bend in 60° N. lat. and several small windings in its upper course. At Katchug—a lading-place 180 miles north-east from Irkutsk—it is still shallow, but soon becomes a mighty stream of much beauty, which is increased by the high crags and mountains amidst which it has dug its channel. Though thus picturesque, its valley can hardly be called hospitable: the narrow level stretches along the base of the mountains are often marshy, while the raw and wet climate renders agriculture most difficult; the villages are poverty-stricken, and in most of them goitre is endemic. About 60° N. lat. the Lena receives from the right its first great tributary, the Vitim (1400 miles in length), which after a very sinuous course leaves the great plateau below Lake Oron, by a narrow gorge which has not yet been visited by any geographer. It is navigable by steamers in its lower course. The next large tributary of the Lena is the Olekma (about 800 miles), which also rises on the plateau and crosses it from south to north; it is navigable only in the very lowest part of its course; higher up, its valley, which offers the greatest difficulties for the traveller, has been utilized as a route only by the Cossack conquerors of Siberia and by one of the members of the Siberian expedition. The next important tributary, also from the right, is the Ałdan (nearly 1300 miles), which first flows parallel to the Lena and then turns north-westwards to join it, itself receiving on the left a large tributary, the Amga. It is navigated from Ust-Maya. The only large tributary of the Lena on the left is the Vilui (about 1300 miles), which has an immense drainage-area on the lower plains, and since 1887 has been navigated by a steamer. At Yakutsk the Lena becomes a magnificent stream of more than 4 miles in width, with numerous islands, and this character it maintains for the next 1200 miles of its course, sometimes reaching a width of 17 miles and a depth of 7 to 8 fathoms. It enters the Arctic Ocean by a wide delta, occupying more than 250 miles of the coast-line; here the river divides into seven or eight principal branches, the chief of which vary from 35 to 65 miles in length, the largest being more than 6 miles broad. The bar, however, has only 8 feet of water, and the Swedish steamer “Lena” had great difficulty in entering from the sea. The lower course of the river is subject to terrible inundations when the ice breaks up on its upper part, whilst at the same time the higher reaches of its lower course are still covered with ice several feet in thickness. Large portions of the banks are then torn away by the enormous masses of ice. The Olenek (1200 miles), which enters the Arctic Ocean to the west of the Lena, is also a considerable river; the Yana (1000 miles), Indighirka (950), and Kołyma (1000) to the east all rise in the mountain region between 61° and 62° N. lat. and flow north and north-east into the Arctic Ocean.
The granites, granitic syenites, and gneisses of the high plateau are surrounded by a variety of crystalline slates, Huronian and Laurentian; and vast layers of Silurian and Devonian limestones and sandstones extend over large areas. Farther north the Carboniferous, Chalk, and Jurassic formations are spread over a wide region, and the whole is covered with layers of Glacial deposits in the highlands and of post-Glacial elsewhere. The mineral wealth of Yakutsk is very great; but gold (262,200 oz. in 1884) and salt (obtained from springs to the amount of about 6000 cwts. annually) only are worked. Coal has been recently discovered on the Vilui close by its mouth, as also on the lower Lena.
Though there are spots in the North-American archipelago and in northern Greenland where the cold is as intense as at Yakutsk, no region can be named which has such extremes of cold and heat or winter temperatures so low, so long continued, or spread over so immense an area. Verkhoyansk on the Yana (67° 34' N. lat. and 134° 20' E. long.) is, in respect of cold, the pole of the Old World; nowhere, even in Siberia, do we find such low winter temperatures: from whatever quarter the wind may blow it cannot fail to bring a warmer temperature to Verkhoyansk. Frosts of -76° Fahr. have been observed there, and the average temperature of the three winter months is - 53°∙1; even that of March is but little above the freezing-point of mercury (-37° ∙9). Neither Ust-Yansk (70° 55' N. lat., but close to the sea coast), nor Yakutsk, nor even the polar station of Sagastyr at the mouth of the Lena (73° 23' N. lat.), has a winter so cold and so protracted. And yet at Sagastyr temperatures of - 63°∙6 were measured in February 1883, and the average temperature of that month was only - 43°∙6. At Yakutsk the average temperature of the winter is -40°∙2, and the soil is frozen to a depth of 600 feet (Middendorff). Even at a depth of 382 feet the temperature of the soil is 26° ∙4 Fahr. For further particulars, see Siberia, vol. xxii. p. 6. The Lena, both at Kirensk and at Yakutsk, is free from ice for only 161 days in the year, the Yana at Ust-Yansk for 105. While at Yakutsk only 145 days and at Verkhoyansk only 73 have no snow; the interval between the latest frosts of one season and the earliest frosts of the next is barely 37 days, and even less in the north.
In spite of the rigours of its climate, the province of Yakutsk had 243,450 inhabitants in 1883, and the population is supposed to be increasing notwithstanding the infectious diseases which sometimes sweep away whole villages. The Russians constitute but a trifling element in the population; and their villages, numbering scarcely twenty, are chiefly peopled by exiled Nonconformists, belonging to the sects reputed “dangerous.” In 1879 there were 5100 exiles living in the towns or settled in the Yakut encampments, 5300 peasants (also formerly exiles), 1890 military, and 4100 artisans, merchants, and officials. The remainder were chiefly Yakuts (211,900), and partly Tunguses (10,400), with a few Yukaghirs, Lamuts, and Tchuktchis. The Yakuts belong to the Turkish stem (see vol. xxiii. p. 661), and speak a dialect of Turkish, with an admixture of Mongolian words. They call themselves Sokha (pl. Sokhalar), their present name having been borrowed by the Russians from the Tunguses, who call them Yeko or Yekot. Most probably they formerly inhabited southern Siberia, and especially the upper Yenisei, where a Tartar stem calling itself Sakha still remains in Minusinsk. They are middle-sized, have dark and rather narrow eyes, a broad flat nose, thick black hair, and almost no beard. On the whole they are healthy and reach an advanced age, are very laborious and enterprising, aud display in schools much more intelligence than the Tunguses or Buriats. Their implements show a great degree of skill and some artistic taste. They live in log yurtas with small windows, into which plates of ice or pieces of skin are inserted instead of glass. A large fire is kept continually burning in the middle of the yurta, which always has a wooden chimney. The yιιrtas are usually at some distance from one another, but at the same time are grouped into villages or naslegs. During summer [9:24:727] they abandon their wooden dwellings and encamp in conical tents, consisting of a few poles covered with prepared birch bark. Their food is chiefly flesh, and their drink koumiss. Though nearly all are nominally Christians, they retain much of their original Shamanism. Their settlements, which formerly were limited to the valleys of the Lena and its northern tributaries, are now steadily advancing southwards into the hunting domains of the Tunguses, who give way before the superior civilization of the Yakuts. Wherever they penetrate, even in the valleys at the base of the Vitim plateau (Muya, Tchara), they always cultivate some barley, and carry on some trade.^[1. Besides the older literature, the bibliography of which is given in Semenoff's Geogr. Dictionary (Russian), compare Radloff's Aus Sibirien (Leipsic, 1884); F. Müller’s Tungusen und Yakuten (Leipsic, 1882); and Vambéry’s Das Türkenvolk (Leipsic, 1885); and several interesting monographs in Izvestia of East Siberian Geogr. Soc. ]
Both the Russians and the Yakuts carry on some agriculture wherever possible in the southern parts of the province; it was estimated in 1879 that 40,000 quarters of barley, summer rye, wheat, and oats were cropped in Yakutsk (23,000 quarters by the Yakuts). But cattle-breeding is the chief means of support; in 1879 there were in Yakutsk 130,400 horses of an excellent small, but most hardy breed, 260,900 cattle, 49,000 reindeer, and several thousands of dogs, which are used for travelling purposes. The hunting of the wild reindeer affords the chief means of subsistence in the tundras; wealth or famine depends upon its success or failure. The herds are attacked on the routes they pursue during their migrations, especially where they have to cross a river. Farther north the pursuit of water-birds, which come in innumerable flocks to breed on the lakes of the tundras and the shores of the ocean, is a most important resource. Fishing also is carried on even in winter from beneath the ice. The mountains between the Lena and the Vitim have, during the last thirty years, become a most important centre of gold-washings, and, notwithstanding the difficulties of communication, and the necessity of bringing everything from Irkutsk or Transbaikalia, the population of the goldmines of the Olekma and Vitim numbered more than 13,000 in 1882. Thousands of workmen go every spring down the Lena to work at the mines and return to their villages in autumn.
The principal channel of communication in Yakutsk is the Lena. As soon as the spring arrives, scores of boats are built at Katchug, Verkholensk, and Ust-Ilga, and the goods brought on sledges in winter from the capital of Eastern Siberia, including considerable amounts of corn and salt meat, are shipped down the river. Steamers ply all along its course, and enter its tributary, the Vitim, which is navigated almost to the gorges beneath Lake Oron. A few steamers descend to the delta of the Lena, and return with cargoes of fish and furs. There are very few overland routes. A new one, available for the transport of live stock from Transbaikalia to the gold-mines of Olekma, was opened in 1869, and cattle are brought every year from Transbaikalia, notwithstanding the hardships of the 700 miles’ route across the plateau and the wild mountain tracts. Two other routes, also mere footpaths, on which travellers and goods are transported on horseback, radiate from Yakutsk to Ayan and to Okhotsk. Manufactured goods and groceries, chiefly tea, rice, and sugar, were imported to Yakutsk by the former route to the amount of some 1000 cwts. in 1883; these goods cross the Stanovoi Mountains and the plateau on sledges as far as the Maya, whence they are shipped to Yakutsk.
The province is divided into five districts, the chief towns of which are— Yakutsk (see below), Sredne - Kołymsk (560), Olek-minsk (500), Verkhoyansk (290), and Viluisk (390). Except Yakutsk, these “towns” are but miserable villages. (P. A. K.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072701-0772m | YAKUTSK, capital of the above province, situated in 62° 2' N. lat. and 129° 44' E. long., 1800 miles to the north-east of Irkutsk, was founded by Cossacks in 1622. It stands on a branch of the Lena, Khatystakh, between which and the main river, five miles distant, lie several low islands. During the break-up of the ice the water of the Khatystakh, finding no outlet into the Lena on account of the huge masses of ice, rises and floods the lower parts of the town, leaving after its subsidence great pools, which, as well as Lake Tałoye close by, become a source of infectious disease. The town is, however, protected to some extent by a wooden embankment. The old fort is now destroyed, but its five wooden towers, erected in the 17th century, are still standing. The streets are unpaved, and the wooden houses are built upon high basements to protect them from the inundations. The shops only are of stone. There are in Yakutsk a cathedral, three churches, a monastery, two gymnasia for boys and girls, and several elementary schools. It is the residence of the
Russian governor and the provincial authorities, as well as of a few wealthy merchants, who carry on trade in furs, mammoth bone, and reindeer hides, which are exported to Russia, and in imported groceries and manufactured goods. The arrival of the latter gives occasion to a fair in July, which is frequented by natives from all parts of the province; the returns are estimated at about £450,000. The population was 5290 in 1885. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 727 [9:24:727] | 62 2' N 129 44' E |
kp-eb0924-072702-0772m | YAM, a term usually applied to the tubers of various species of Dioscorea. These are plants with thick rootstocks, from which protrude long slender, climbing stems, bearing alternate or opposite, entire or lobed leaves and unisexual flowers in long clusters. The flowers are generally small and individually inconspicuous, though collectively showy. Each consists of a greenish bell-shaped or flat perianth of six pieces, enclosing six or fewer stamens in the case of the male flowers, and a three-celled, threewinged ovary in that of the female flowers. The ovary ripens into a membranous capsule, bursting by three valves to liberate numerous flattish or globose seeds. The species are natives of the warmer regions of both hemispheres, and many of them are important on account of the large amount of starch contained in their tubers. According to Prof. Church’s analysis of the Chinese yam, it contains more nutritive or nitrogenous matter, but less starch, than potatoes: in 100 parts there are of water 82∙6, starch 13∙1, albumen 2∙4, fat 0∙2, woody fibre 0∙4, and mineral matter 1∙3 parts.
D. sαtivα and D. alata are the species most widely diffused in tropical and sub-tropical countries. D. aculeata, grown in India, Cochin China, and the South Sea Islands, is esteemed one of the best varieties. D. japonica, the Chinese yam, is hardy in Great Britain, but the great depth to which its enormous tubers descend renders its cultivation unprofitable; the tubers of D. alata sometimes attain a weight of 100 lb. Most of the yams contain an acrid principle, which is dissipated in cooking.
The only European Dioscorea is that known as D. pyrenaica, found in 1845 in the Pyrenees, a remarkable instance of a species growing at along distance from all its congeners. True yams must not be confounded with the sweet potato, Convolvulus Batatas (see vol. xix. p. 597), as they sometimes are in London markets. The common black briony (Tamus communis) of hedges in England is closely allied to the yams of the tropics, and has a similar rootstock, which is reputed to be poisonous. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072703-0772m | YAMBO, or Yembo, more properly Yanbo', a town of Arabia on the Red Sea, in 24° 4' N. lat. Having the best harbour on this coast, it has taken the place of Al-Jâr (which lay to the south and is now ruined) as the port of Medina, and is visited by steamships in connexion with the pilgrim traffic and for the import of grain. The town is surrounded by dilapidated walls, and the fixed population probably does not exceed 4000 (Von Maltzan). The Johaina Arabs are the dominant element, though there is a Turkish officer and guard who maintain a certain authority within the walls. Six or seven hours’ journey inland at the base of the mountains (Jebel Radwâ) is the fruitful valley of Yanbo' al-Nakhl, with palm-groves, several hamlets of the Johaina, and country houses of the merchants of the port. This inland town, or group of villages, is the Yanbo' of the old Arab geographers, and lies on the route of the Egyptian pilgrim caravan, one night’s journey from the famous battlefield of Bedr. The port is sometimes distinguished as Yanbo' al-Bahr (Yanbo' on the Sea). | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072704-0772m | YANAON, a French settlement in India, near the mouth of the Godavari on the Orissa coast, in the Godavari district, Madras presidency. It is situated in 16° 44' 10" N. lat. and 82° 12' 5" E. long., and has an area of 2258 acres and a population of 4473.
Yanaon was founded shortly before 1750, and its fortunes followed the vicissitudes of French history in southern India. With the other French possessions in India it was secured by the treaty of 1814-15.
[9:24:728] | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072801-0773m | YANG-CHOW FU, or Hang-chow Foo, a prefectural city in the Chinese province of Kiang-su, is situated on the Grand Canal in 32° 21' N. lat. and 119° 15' E. long. The walls are between three and four miles in circumference, and the streets both in the suburbs and in the city are well supplied with handsome shops. The temples, colleges, and other public buildings are fine and large, and there is generally a well-to-do look about the place. The flourishing trade of the town may be either the cause or the result of an almost Jewish predilection shown by the people for mercantile pursuits. Unlike Chinamen generally, they prefer trade to husbandry, and have earned for themselves pre-eminence as a community of shopkeepers. Another of their characteristics is their extreme superstition. Their observance of full moons and festivals exceeds in ritualistic display that which is commonly thought to be good enough for such occasions by their fellow-countrymen; and their jealousy for the honour of their gods has on more than one occasion led to religious outbreaks. The most violent of these fanatical ebullitions, so far as foreigners are concerned, occurred in 1868, when Mr Hudson Taylor first attempted to open a mission there. But Yang-chow Fu possesses an earlier historical connexion with foreigners. Marco Polo ruled over it for three years by appointment from Kublai Khan (? 1282-85). The great traveller speaks of it as “a noble city,” “which has seven and twenty other wealthy cities under its administration. . . . The people,” he adds, “are idolaters and use paper money.” They “live by trade and manufactures, for a great amount of harness for knights and men-at-arms are made there.” The population of the city and suburbs is estimated at about 360,000. In 1880 the value of foreign goods imported into the town amounted to about <£96,956. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072802-0773m | YANG-TSE KIANG, or Yang-tsze Keang. See China, vol. v. p. 631. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072803-0773m | YANINA. See Janina. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072804-0773m | YANKTON, one of the principal cities of the Territory of Dakota, United States, and until recently its capital, is the county seat of Yankton county, and is situated upon both banks of the James or Dakota river at its confluence with the Missouri, and on the Chicago and St Paul and the Chicago and North Western Railroads. It serves as a centre of supply and distribution for the adjacent fertile plains. The population in 1880 was 3431; in 1888 this had probably increased to 5000.
The city derives its name from the Yankton division of the Sioux Indians. A trading-post was first established on its site in 1859, and the city was incorporated ten years later. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-072805-0773m | YARKAND, or Yarkend, the chief town of the principal oasis of East Turkestan, is situated on the Yarkand-Daria, in 38° 25' N. lat. and 77° 16' E. long., at an altitude of about 4100 feet above sea-level. The settlements of the Yarkand oasis occupy the south-western corner of East Turkestan, and are scattered along the numerous rivers which issue from the steep slopes of the Pamir in the west, and the Karakorum and Kuen-Lun Mountains in the south. The oasis of Kashgar limits it in the north, and a tract of desert separates it from the oasis of Khotan in the southeast. The Yarkand-Daria and its numerous tributaries, which are fed by the glaciers of the mountain regions, as also many rivers which no longer reach the main stream but are lost in the steppe or amidst the irrigated fields, bring abundance of water to the desert; one of them is called Zerafshan (“gold-strewing”), as much on account of the fertility it brings to the desert as of the small amount of gold discovered in its auriferous sands. Numberless irrigation canals, some of them of considerable length, carry the water of the rivers to the fields, which occupy a broad zone of loess skirting the base of the mountains. Higher up, in the spurs of the mountains, there are rich pasturages, where large numbers of goats, yaks, camels, sheep, and cattle are reared. On the whole, the oasis of Yarkand is regarded as the richest of East Turkestan, and its population probably numbers about 200,000 inhabitants (32,000 households in 1873). Wheat, barley, rice, beans, and various oil-yielding plants are grown in the fields, and the gardens supply abundance of melons, grapes, apples, and other fruits. The cotton tree and the mulberry are cultivated in the warmer parts of the oasis. There is no lack of gold, lead, and precious stones in the mountains, though only the first-named is at present extracted. A variety of petty trades are carried on in the towns; Yarkand is renowned for its leather-ware and saddlery. The population consists of Persians, who have almost given up the use of their mother tongue and now speak Turkish, and of Turkish Sarts.
The town of Yarkand, which has a population of about 60,000 according to Forsyth (5000 houses in the city, and as many in Yanghishar and the suburbs), is very favourably situated on the river of the same name, five days’ journey south-east from Kashgar. It is surrounded by a thick earthen wall, nearly four miles long, with towers in the Chinese style of architecture, and is well watered by numberless canals, which are drawn from the river and, after having irrigated the rich gardens of the city, lead to cisterns in which water is collected for the winter. The square fortress of Yanghishar, which was built by the Chinese, stands within four hundred yards of the walls of the town. The ten mosques and madrasas of Yarkand, although much poorer than those of Bokhara or Samarcand, enjoy a wide renown in the Moslem world. There is a brisk trade, especially in horses, cotton, leather-ware, and all kinds of imported manufactured goods.
Yarkand is surrounded by a number of smaller towns, the chief of which are—Yanghi-hissar, which has about 600 houses and is the centre of a populous district, Tash-kurgan on the Pamir, now reckoned as belonging to the Russians, Posgam (1600 houses), Kargałyk, at the junction of the routes leading to Ladak and Khotan (2000 houses), Sanju (2000), Tagarchi, Kartchum, Besh-taryk (1800), Guma (3000), and several smaller ones.
Yarkand was but very imperfectly known until the second half of the 19th century. Marco Polo visited it between 1271 and 1275, and Goes in 1603; but the continuous wars which marked the history of the oasis (see Turkestan, vol. xxiii. pp. 637-640) prevented Europeans from frequenting it, so that until 1863 the information borrowed from mediaeval travellers and from Chinese sources, along with that supplied by the pandit Mir Isset Ullah in 1812, was all that was known about the Yarkand region. The first European who reached it in the 19th century was Adolph Schlagintweit, who passed by Yarkand in August 1857, but was killed a few days later at Kashgar. The pandit Mohammed Hamid visited it in 1863 and determined its geographical position and altitude. The best recent information is due to Robert Shaw^[1. R. Shaw, Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand, and Kashgar, London, 1871. ] and G. W. Hayward, who stayed at Yarkand in 1869, and to Sir Douglas Forsyth, who first visited it in 1870. Three years later he visited it again with an expedition which had Gordon, Bellew, Chapman, Trotter, Biddulph, and Stoliczka as members, and afterwards published a detailed report upon the scientific results of the mission.^[2. Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873, Calcutta, 1875, with numerous photographs. ] In 1886, after a remarkable journey through East Turkestan, A. D. Carey reached Yarkand and spent the winter there. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 728 [9:24:728] | 38 25' N 77 16' E |
kp-eb0924-072806-0773m | YARMOUTH, or Great Yarmouth, a municipal and parliamentary borough, seaport, watering place, and important fishing station of England, chiefly in Norfolk, with a small portion (of the municipal borough only) in Suffolk, is situated on a long and narrow peninsula of sand, bounded on the west by the river Bure, the Breydon (formed by the Yare and the Waveney), and the estuary of these rivers. It stands on the Great Eastern and the Eastern and Midland Railway lines, 20 miles east of Norwich and 122 [9:24:729] north-east of London. The old town of Great Yarmouth was built chiefly along the eastern bank of the Yare, but within recent years the town has extended beyond its ancient walls, of which some remains still exist, to the seashore, where there are a marine drive and three piers—two of them 700 feet long. The principal features of Yarmouth are the north and south quays, and the straight narrow lanes, 145 in number, called “rows,” running at right angles to them. These rows were at one time inhabited by the wealthy burgesses, and many of the houses now tenanted by the poorer classes have curiously panelled rooms, with richly decorated ceilings. The market place of Yarmouth is one of the most spacious in the kingdom, its area being about three acres. The old town of Great Yarmouth is connected with Little Yarmouth by a bridge across the Yare of stone and iron, erected in 1854. The Bure is crossed by a suspension bridge. The church of St Nicholas, founded in 1101 by Herbert Losinga, the first bishop of Norwich (who removed the see from Thetford), and consecrated in 1119, is one of the largest parish churches in England. Originally it was in the form of a Latin cross, but only the tower of the ancient building remains; and by successive alterations the form of the church has been completely changed. The clerestoried nave in the Early English style, with columns alternately octangular and circular, was rebuilt in the reign of King John. A portion of the chancel is of the same date. About fifty years later the aisles were widened, so that the nave is now the narrowest part of the building. A grand west front with towers and pinnacles was constructed in 1330-38, but the building was interrupted by a visitation of the plague. Within the church there were at one time eighteen chapels, maintained by guilds or private families, but these were demolished by the Reformers, who sold the valuable utensils of the building and applied the money to the widening of the channel of the harbour. During the Commonwealth the Independents appropriated the chancel, the Presbyterians the north aisle, and the Episcopalians were allowed the remainder of the building. The brick walls erected at this time to separate the different portions of the building remained till 1847. In 1864 the tower was restored, and the east end of the chancel rebuilt; in 1869-70 the south aisle was rebuilt; and in 1884 the south transept, the west end of the nave, and the north aisle underwent restoration. The width of the nave is 26 feet, and its length to the tower 117, that of the tower 27 feet, and of the chancel 92,—total 236 feet. The Roman Catholic church is a handsome Gothic building erected in 1850. In 1551 a grammar school was founded, the great hall of the dissolved hospital, founded in the reign of Edward I. by Thomas Fastolfe, being appropriated as the building. The school was closed from 1757 to 1860, when it was re-established by the charity trustees; and in 1872 new buildings were erected. In the hospital school a number of boys and girls were formerly boarded and educated, but since 1850 the charity has been administered as a place of free education only. Among the other principal public buildings are the town-hall and public offices, of red brick and red sandstone in the Queen Anne style of architecture, with a tower 125 feet in height, erected in 1883; the aquarium, erected in 1877 and extended in 1882; the old toll-house, formerly the town-hall, a building of the 14th century, which has been carefully preserved as a relic of antiquity; and the assembly and reading rooms, the drill-hall, the custom-house, the barracks at Southtown, the bathhouse, the workhouse, the public library, and two theatres. A Doric column, 144 feet in height, was erected on the downs in 1817 to the memory of Nelson. Among the charitable and benevolent institutions are the royal naval lunatic asylum, originally founded as a lunatic hospital in 1811; the sailors’ home (1859), the boys’ home (1870), the Walrond memorial smack-boys’ home (1875), the fishermen’s hospital (1702), and Warne’s and various minor charities.
Yarmouth Roads, except in east or north-east winds, afford excellent anchorage. The present channel to the quays was made in 1567 by Joost Jansen, a Netherlands engineer. It affords a depth of water at the bar of 12 feet, and at high water of 18 to 20 feet. The town owes its origin to the fisheries, and is now one of the chief fishing stations on the east coast of England, being specially famed for its herring and mackerel fisheries (see Fisheries, vol. ix. pp. 251-252), while cod and other white fish are also caught in great quantities. The number of boats registered under the Fisheries Act in December 1886 was 439, employing from 4500 to 6100 men and boys. The boats engaged in fishing are mostly trawling smacks. The curing of fish is an important industry, Yarmouth bloaters being celebrated throughout the kingdom. A great stimulus was given to the fishing trade by the erection of a fish wharf in 1869, having a length of 2257 feet. There is a considerable inland trade on the rivers by means of lighters and wherries. In 1883 the value of the imports of foreign and colonial produce reached <£285,742, and, although in 1886 it sank to £173,636, the average for the five years preceding 1888 was about £235,000. The value of the exports in 1882 was £3399 and in 1886 £14,706. The principal imports are coal, timber, and provisions. The trade is chiefly with the Baltic ports, France, Portugal, Spain, the Channel Islands, the United States, and British North America. The number of vessels engaged in the foreign and colonial trade that entered in 1886 was 191 of 38,134 tons, that cleared 99 of 18,299 tons. The number in the coasting trade was 1033 of 110,312 tons entered, and 1083 of 124,527 tons cleared. Steam-packets ply between London, Hull, and Newcastle. Ship-building and boat-building are carried on chiefly in connexion with the fisheries, the number built in 1886 being 11 of 781 tons. There are also rope, twine, and trawl-net manufactories, silk-crape works, and extensive maltings. Yarmouth is frequented in summer as a seaside resort. It is governed by a mayor, twelve aldermen, and thirty-six councillors. The corporation act as the urban sanitary authority. Water is obtained from one of the “broads” at Ormesby. The borough has a separate commission of the peace and court of quartersessions. The population of the municipal borough (area 3685 acres) was 41,819 in 1871 and 46,159 (9008 being in Gorleston in Suffolk) in 1881.
At the close of the 5th century Yarmouth is said to have been the landing-place of a Saxon invader Cerdic. At an early period it was resorted to by fishermen from the Cinque Ports and from the Continent for the herring-fishing, who dried their nets on the denes or downs, and also erected tents where they sold their fish to merchants from London and elsewhere. At Domesday the place is described as the king’s demesne, and as having seventy burgesses. Henry I. appointed a provost as governor, and in the 9th year of John it received a charter of incorporation. It received another charter from Henry III., who permitted the inhabitants to enclose the borough with walls and moats. In 1338-39 the town suffered severely from the plague, during which 7000 persons are said to have died. In 1381 the rebels under Wat Tyler were defeated by the inhabitants of Yarmouth. The town also rendered considerable assistance when England was threatened by the Spanish Annada; in recognition of this Elizabeth empowered the “bailiffs, burgesses, and commonalty" to hold an admiralty court, and extended their liberties in other ways. In 1588 a castle was built in the centre of the town, and a mound called the south mound raised and crowned with heavy ordnance. The castle was demolished in 1621 and new fortifications thrown up, having a circuit of 2½ miles. On account of the hardship experienced by the town from the levying of ship-money by Charles I., it declared for the Parliament. At the close of the war the fortifications were demolished. From an early period the Cinque Ports had the power of sending bailiffs to Yarmouth to govern the town during the herring-fishing season, [9:24:730] from Michaelmas to Martinmas, their jurisdiction being concurrent with that of the bailiffs of Yarmouth; but on account of the jealousies that were thus created the privilege was abolished in the reign of Charles II. Until the Act of William IV. the town was governed by a charter of Queen Anne. It sent two members to parliament from the reign of Edward I. till 1867, when it was disfranchised; but by the Act of 1885 it was again allowed to return one member. (T. F. H.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 728 [9:24:728] | |
kp-eb0924-073001-0775m | YARN consists of any textile fibre prepared by the process of spinning for being woven into cloth. It is only in a few minor and exceptional cases, such as the weaving of hair-cloth or of wire, that there is any making of woven fabrics without the previous spinning of yarn. As weaving can be shown to be among the earliest and most universal of the industries of mankind, the process of spinning yarn, which of necessity accompanies or rather precedes weaving, can be claimed as one of the primal employments of the race. There is ample evidence obtainable, not only of the great antiquity, but also of the wide —almost universal—diffusion of the art of spinning. Remains of the implements employed are found wherever traces of prehistoric and early man make their appearance. It happens that the exceedingly simple apparatus which was used in the earliest ages continued to be the spinning implements of civilized communities till comparatively recent times, and it may therefore be said that there is no art which has been more widely diffused, more uniformly practised, and which remained so long fixed and unprogressive, as that of yarn-spinning. On the other hand, since human ingenuity bent itself to improve the art—and these efforts only began in earnest about the middle of the 18th century—there have not been developed in the whole range of mechanical industries implements of greater variety, complexity, delicacy of action, and manifold productive capacity than the varied machines now adapted for the production of yarn.
The primitive spinning implement consists of a spindle, a rod of wood, usually from 9 to 12 inches in length, rounded and tapering towards both extremities, as showm in the accompanying cut. At the upper extremity there is usually a notch, in which the yarn is caught while undergoing the operation of twisting, and to the spindle there is commonly added a whorl—a perforated disk of stone or other heavy material—the object of which is by its weight to give momentum and steadiness to the spindle when it is rotated by the hands of the spinner. The fibre to be spun is commonly attached loosely to a distaff or “rock” of wood, which is held under the left arm of the operator; but in the case of certain short fibres the material is made up in rolls or cardings. A rotatory motion is given to the spindle by twirling it between the fingers of the right hand; and the fibre to be spun is then drawn out in a uniform strand between the fingers of both hands and simultaneously twisted into yarn by the rotating spindle to which it is attached. The portion that is sufficiently twisted is wound on the body of the spindle, and the operation is continued till the spindle is filled with yarn of a smooth and equal calibre. The quantity thus rolled up gives the name to a now definite measure of yarn, “the spindle.” Simple and primitive as is this apparatus, a dexterous and experienced spinner is able to produce yarn of an evenness, strength, and delicacy such as can scarcely be exceeded with the aid of the most complicated appliances and by the numerous processes of perfected modern spinning. The cotton yarns with which the famous Dacca muslins of India,—textures which from their extreme flimsy airiness receive such names as “woven air” and “evening dew,”—are spun with the aid only of these simple and rude appliances. The spindle used by the deft Hindu is a slender strip of bamboo not much bigger than a darning needle, lightly weighted with a pellet of clay; and, as the tender thread formed cannot even support the weight of so slight a spindle, the apparatus is rotated in a socket, which consists of a piece of hollow shell. The spindle as here described was the sole apparatus with which, so far as is known, the whole of the yarn woven into cloth by mankind till comparatively modern times was made, and even at the present day it is not wholly obsolete. Apart from its use in Eastern countries and among the untutored tribes of Central Africa, the spindle in its original form continues to be used in the remote districts of the Scottish Highlands and islands, and in many other regions of Europe.
Throughout all the changes and developments of modern yarn-spinning the rotating spindle continues to be the essential implement, and all the improvements which have been effected have had for their object,—(1) the providing of mechanical means of rotating the spindle, (2) an automatic method of drawing out and attenuating the fibre, and (3) devices for working a large group of spindles together.
The first improvement on the simple spindle consisted in mounting it horizontally in bearings, and giving it a rotatory motion by a band from a large wheel, passing round a small pulley or “wharve” fixed on the spindle itself. Such was the first spinning wheel which, in the form of the “charka,” has long been known in the East Indies; and from a drawing in a 14th-century MS. in the British Museum it is obvious that it was not unknown, although certainly far from common, in Europe at that early date. A jewelled model hand-wheel of this description was formerly the property of Mary of Guise. This form of wheel came ultimately to be known in Scotland as the “muckle wheel,” in contradistinction to one of later invention, and the method of working it is not yet an altogether forgotten art.
No strict record of the dates at which various developments of the art of spinning took place are to be found, and it is certain that many appliances were long known and to some extent used before their adoption became general. Thus it is quite clear that the flier, which is fitted around modern spindles for twisting the yarn before it is wound on the bobbin, was known to Leonardo da Vinci and probably invented by him. Among the numerous mechanical drawings left by that man of genius there is one which shows a spindle with flier and bobbin, with a device for moving the bobbin up and down on the spindle so as to effect an even distribution of the yarn. But the use of the flier does not seem to have been known in England till about the end of the 17th century. In a pamphlet issued in 1681 by Thomas Firmin, entitled Some Proposals for the Employment of the Poor, there is an illustration of an improved wheel, with two spindles provided with fliers, having on them hooks or pins for directing the yarn on different parts of the bobbin. The sketch also shows the spindle and flier driven by different bands, as was the case with the spinning-wheel which subsequently came into common use. In hand-spinning the further application of the treadle motion, with connecting-rod and crankaxle to drive the little wheel with the feet alone, was the final development. By this agency both hands of the spinner were free, continuous and uniform motion was secured, and the spinner could work two spindles simultaneously, the one with the right and the other with the left hand. It was in this condition that the most advanced form of yarn-making was carried on in the 18th century, when a great series of inventions revolutionized the entire range of textile industries and laid the foundation of the gigantic factory system of spinning and weaving which now prevails.
The problem which lay before inventors was to bring tangled masses of fibrous material into parallel order, and to draw out and twist these fibres into uniform strands by automatic means, without the continuous application of intelligent attention. The first stage in the evolution of mechanical spinning was effected under the patent of Louis Paul in 1738, in which there was clearly described and foreshadowed what is now one of the most important features of spinning machinery—the drawing rollers. In his specification he says :—
“One end of the mass, rope, thread, or sliver is put betwixt a pair of rowlers. cillinders, or cones, or some such movements, which, being turned round, by their motion draws in the raw mass of wool or cotton to be spun, in proportion to the velocity given to such rowlers, cillinders, or cones As the prepared mass passes regularly through or betwixt these rowlers, cillinders, or cones, a succession of other rowlers, cillinders, or cones, moving proportionably faster [9:24:731] than the first, draw the rope, thread, or sliver into any degree of fineness whieh may be required.”
Next, to James Hargreaves of Blackburn is due the first conception of the famous spinning-jenny, which he devised about 1767 and patented in 1770. In his specification Hargreaves describes his invention as a machine or engine to be managed by one person only, and that the wheel or engine will spin, draw, and twist sixteen or more threads at one time by a turn or motion of one hand and a draw of the other. At the same time the humble barber of Preston, Richard Arkwright, was busily engaged in developing the important series of inventions and adaptations which resulted in the modern throstle spinning-frame. Arkwright’s principal patents were secured in 1769 and 1775; and in the latter year Samuel Crompton of Bolton brought before the world his mule spinning-frame, in which the drawing rollers of Paul and Arkwright were with happy effect applied to the jenny of Hargreaves. These inventions are at the foundation of all modern systems of yarn-spinning; details regarding them are given under Cotton, Linen, Silk, and Wool.
The various methods by which the sizes or counts of yarn have been fixed in different countries have long been a source of much inconvenience in the international exchange of spun yarns. The methods of estimating sizes or weights of yarn are indeed complicated in the extreme, for not only has each country different standards, which may locally be disregarded, but for the yarn from each separate fibre there may be different lengths of hank and different methods of estimating sizes. Thus, taking English standards, we find that cotton yarns are made up into hanks of 560 “threads” of 1½ yards, giving 840 yards per hank, and the “counts” are the number of hanks which go to make 1 lb weight of yarn. For linen yarns there are 2½ yards in a thread, and 120 threads or 300 yards in a lea, and the count is the number of leas per lb. In a hank of worsted or woollen yarn there are 560 yards, and the count similarly is the number of hanks per lb. In Continental countries the length of the hank or its equivalent is different; the weight by which the count is reckoned also varies; and, as the weights and measures of the several countries have only the most involved ratio to each other, to estimate comparative sizes complex calculated tables are necessary. Attempts have been made to establish an international standard of numbering yarns based on the French metric system, in which the count is the number of grams which a definite length of yarn—1000 metres—weighs. No progress, however, has been made in coming to an international agreement in the question. (J. PA.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 730 [9:24:730] | |
kp-eb0924-073101-0776m | YAROSLAVL, a government of central Russia, separated from Moscow by narrow strips of Vladimir and Tver on the S., and having Tver and Novgorod on the W., Vologda on the N., and Kostroma on the E., is one of the smallest, but at the same time one of the most populous and industrial governments of Great Russia. It has an area of 13,751 square miles, and the population was 1,118,130 in 1884. It consists of a broad and shallow depression, elongated from west to east, where the Volga flows at a level ranging from 260 to 230 feet above the sea, while the surrounding hills rise to altitudes of from 700 to 800 feet. In the west, especially between the Mołoga and the Sheksna, the country is covered with marshes and ponds, which become completely flooded when the water rises in the rivers. There is another region of low and marshy tracts in the south, about Rostoff. Gentle sloping hills appear in the north on the left bank of the Sheksna.
Jurassic clays, sandstones, and sands cover nearly the whole of Yarostavl, but they are concealed almost everywhere by thick deposits of Glacial boulder clay, which is regarded by Russian geologists as the bottom moraine of the great ice-cap of the Glacial period. Triassic “variegated marls,” widely diffused throughout the whole of the middle Volga region, undoubtedly underlie nearly all the Jurassic deposits of the government, but only a few patches come to the surface; many salt springs exist in these deposits. The Upper Carboniferous limestones come to the surface only in the north-west and towards the east.^[1. Geological Survey of Russia, sheet 56, by Nikitin (Russian and German), St Petersburg, 1884. ] The chief mineral products are bog-iron ores, sulphate of copper, and pottery clay. Peat occurs in thick beds. There are also several mineral springs. The soil is mostly a kind of loess of moderate fertility; sandy tracts are not uncommon; and wide areas are covered with marshes—relics of the great lakes of the Lacustrine period.
The chief river of the government is the Volga, which traverses it for 180 miles, making a great bend to the north. The chief towns—Rybinsk, Yarosłavl, Motoga, Romanoff-Borisoglyebsk, Uglitch, and Myshkin—are situated on its banks, and a brisk traffic is carried on, both by the river itself and by two canals, Mariinsk and Tikhvinsk, which connect it with the Neva through its tributaries the Sheksna and the Mołoga. Another tributary received by the Volga within the government is the Kotorost, which has many manufactories on its banks and is navigated, especially in spring. The Kostroma flows along the eastern border and is a channel for the export of timber and fuel. Small lakes are numerous, the chief being Lake Nero or Rostoff. The forests, which consist chiefly of fir and Scotch pine, cover one-third of the aggregate area; but they are rapidly being destroyed. The flora of Yarosłavl, although similar to that of Moscow, bears a northern stamp owing to the presence of the dwarf birch, Rubus arcticus, and Linnaea borealis.
The climate is as continental as that of middle Russia generally. The average temperature at Yarosłavl is 36°∙7 Fahr. (January 6°∙5, July 61°∙5); the prevailing south-western and western winds render it moister than in central Russia; and the average number of days with rain or snow is 114. The rivers remain frozen from 118 to 183 days every year.
The population is thoroughly Great Russian. The aboriginal Meryas have been completely Russified; and traces of the Karelians, who immigrated in the 17th century, can only be discovered in the names and features of some inhabitants on the Siti river. There are moreover some 1000 Tartars, 2100 Jews, and about 500 Gipsies. Leaving out of account some 2700 Catholics and Protestants, the population belongs to the Greek Orthodox Church or is Raskolnik.
Although Yarosłavl is one of the chief manufacturing governments of the empire, its inhabitants have by no means abandoned agriculture, 27 per cent. of the total area being under crops (36 per cent. under forests and 8 per cent. untillable); on the lands of the peasantry the percentage is still greater (from 46 to 58 per cent.). Rye, oats, and barley, with some wheat and pease, are the chief crops, and in good seasons Yarosłavl has even a surplus of corn, which is either sent to the distilleries or exported. The average crops of 1883-85 were 960,100 quarters of rye, 36,000 of wheat, 97,400 of barley, 1,097,100 of oats, 19,600 of other grain, and 6,992,800 bushels of potatoes. Nearly 40,000 cwts. of flax are cropped every year. Market-gardening is largely engaged in and the Yarosłavl gardeners have a wide repute throughout Russia. Chicory, sweet pease, cucumbers, apples, and berries are exported. Although there is no want of meadows, cattle-breeding is not greatly developed. In 1882-84 there were 178,370 horses, 260,000 cattle, 188,700 sheep, and 4700 pigs. One-third of the peasant households had no horses. Cheese-making on the co-operative principle has spread extensively of late, owing to the efforts of the zemstvo ; 93 associations have a yearly production to the value of £12,700. Domestic trades are carried on in great variety in the villages, including the making of linen cloth, boots, gloves, sheepskins, knitted wares, clothes, felts, all kinds of wooden wares, pottery, and a variety of metallic goods. The total production is very considerable, although no details are available. The manufactures are growing rapidly, the yearly production of 1708 establishments being estimated at £2,210,000 in 1884. Cotton and linen are the chief items (nearly £1,000,000); flour-mills, distilleries, and tobacco works come next; and these are followed by chemical works and workshops for machinery, metallic wares, and so on, which are rapidly developing. The trade of the government is very active both on the Volga and on the two railway lines, one of which connects Rybinsk with the St Petersburg and Moscow line and the other connects Yarosłavl with Moscow and Vologda. Rybinsk and Yarosłavl are the chief commercial centres, but Rostoff, Motoga, Romanoff, and Poshekhonie also carry on an active trade in corn, timber, and manufactured wares. The total merchandise shipped or discharged to and from the towns and villages of Yarosłavl is estimated at 1,600,000 tons annually, one-half by rail.
One of the most distinctive features of Yarosłavl is the large numbers of its male population who annually leave their homes in order to work all over Russia as locksmiths, masons, plasterers, waiters in restaurants, greengrocers, tailors, gardeners, carpenters, joiners, pilots, or boatmen. Many of these employments have been specialties of the population of Yarosłavl from a remote antiquity, and the native of this government can easily be distinguished by his enterprising spirit, keen air, and energetic and nervous temperament In Moscow and St Petersburg together there are about 76,400 employed in the above capacities, and it may be estimated that as many as 100,000 persons annually leave their homes in this way.
The educational institutions were represented in 1884 by a lyceum (197 students), six gymnasia (569 boys and 1219 girls), a military school (492 boys), a seminary for teachers (81 students), and 745 elementary schools (25,780 boys, 10,140 girls).
Yarosłavl is divided into ten districts, the chief towns of which, with their population in 1884, are— Yakoslavl (see below), Daniloff (5780), Lubim (3180), Mołoga (6360), Myshkin (2390), Poshekhonie (5990), Romanoff-Borisoglyebsk (5300), Rostoff (12,450), Rybinsk (19,900), and Uglitch (11,930). Petrovsk (1760) has municipal institutions.
[9:24:732]
History.— As early as the 9th century the Slavonians had become masters of the Yarosłavl territory, which was formerly occupied by the Finnish stems Vess and Merya, as also by Mordvinians, Muroms, and Tcheremisses in the south. Rostoff was already in existence; but Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, and Uglitch begin to be mentioned in the annals only in the 11th and 12th centuries. The independent principality of Rostoff was divided in the 13th century into three parts, but these were soon afterwards successively annexed to Moscow.
See the Trudy of the Yaroslavl Statistical Committee, 8 vols., and the Vyestnik of the Yaroslavl zemstvo, published since 1872. (P. A. K.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073201-0777m | YAROSLAVL, capital of the above government, stands on the right bank of the Volga, at its junction with the Kotorost, 173 miles by rail to the north-east of Moscow, and had a population of 48,310 inhabitants in 1884; but this number is temporarily much increased during the period of navigation. The suburbs of the town occupy the left bank and are inundated at high water. A fine quay borders the Volga for nearly two miles. The cathedrals and several churches are very old. The Uspenskiy cathedral was begun in 1215 and rebuilt in 1648; the churches of the Preobrazhenskiy monastery, St John’s, and Voskre-seniye date from the 15th and 17th centuries, the second being a fine specimen of the architectural style exemplified in the Vasiliy Blazhennyi church of Moscow. Yaroslavl has a lyceum, founded by Demidoff, with a juridical faculty, three gymnasia (409 boys, 669 girls), and various primary schools. The manufactories, whose total production in 1862 barely reached the value of £200,000, now employ 5100 hands and yield an output valued at about <£1,000,000 (one-half from one cotton-mill). The trade, especially that in corn, is very active and accounts for one-quarter of the whole traffic of the government. The Yaroslavl merchants also carry on a large import trade in manufactured goods and groceries.
The town of Yaroslavl was founded in 1026-1036 by Yaroslav Vladimirovitch, who caused a wooden fort to be erected at the confluence of the Kotorost with the Volga. It became the chief town of a principality in 1218 and remained so until 1471, when it fell under the dominion of Moscow. Even in the 13th century Yaroslavl was an important town, and, although it suffered during subsequent wars, it maintained its importance until the 19th century, when the trade on the Volga and its rising manufactures again gave it a position of predominance in the upper basin of the Volga. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073202-0777m | YARRELL, William (1784-1856), one of the most popular of British naturalists, was born at Westminster in June 1784. His father was a newspaper agent, and he himself succeeded to the business on his father’s death, and prosecuted it till within a few years of his own. He availed himself of any interval of relaxation to enjoy such sport as the neighbourhood of London afforded, acquired the reputation of being the best shot and the first angler in the metropolis, and soon also became an expert naturalist. In 1824 he became a fellow of the Linnean Society, and was a diligent contributor to their Transactions ; and he was one of the earliest members of the Zoological Society. The greater part of his leisure towards the end of his life was devoted to his two great works, The History of British Fishes (2 vols., 1836) and The History of British Birds (2 vols., 1843). These works are compiled on the same plan; they contain accurate figures, with accompanying descriptions, of every British fish or bird; and they have from the first taken their position as standard authorities. Few books on natural history are more agreeable to the general reader: the style is pleasant, and the truth with which he describes the habits of the birds is such as might have been expected from a keen and observant sportsman. In 1856 he had an attack of paralysis, of which he died at Yarmouth on 1st September of the same year. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073203-0777m | YAWS is the name in use in the British West Indies and on the West Coast of Africa for a peculiar disease of the skin in Negroes. The learned name, first applied by Sauvages (1761), is framboesia, from the likeness of the typical excrescences to a raspberry. For many years yaws was thought to be peculiar to the African Negro, either in his home (both west and east coasts) or in the West Indies and Brazil. But a disease the same in every respect has long been known in the East Indies (first mentioned by Bontius early in the 17th century), affecting the Malays rather than the Negroes, its chief seats being Amboyna, Ternate, Timor, Celebes, Java, and Sumatra. It has been identified more recently by De Rochas and other observers in New Caledonia and Fiji. The parangi of Ceylon has been shown by Kynsey to be the same as the West Indian yaws. Also in the Samoa group, to which there has been no Negro migration, an identical malady occurs. The closely allied verrugas of the Peruvian Andes (see Wart) is so different in its endemic circumstances that it is not usually classified as a form of yaws. The account that follows applies equally to all of the local forms, while it has more especial reference to yaws in the Negroes of the West Indies.
The general course of the disease is as follows. Previous to the eruption there may or may not be any disorder of health; in children (who form a large part of the subjects of yaws) there will probably be rheumatic pains in the limbs and joints, with languor, debility, and upset of the digestion; in adults of ordinary vigour the eruption is often the first sign, and it is attended with few or no constitutional troubles. The eruption begins as small pimples like a pin’s head, smooth and nearly level with the surface; they have a little whitish speck on their tops, grow rapidly, and reach the size of a sixpence or a shilling. The pustules then break, and a thick viscid ichor exudes and dries upon them as a whitish slough, and around their base as a yellowish brown crust. Beneath the whitish slough is the raspberry excrescence or yaw proper, a reddish fungous growth with a nodular surface. The favourite seats of the eruption are the forehead, face, neck, armpits, groin, genitals, perinaeum, and buttocks. Hairs at the seat of a yaw turn white. In young children or infants the corners of the mouth ulcerate, as in syphilis, and the perineal excrescences resemble condylomata. The pustules and excrescences do not all arise in one crop: some are found mature while others are only starting. If the patient be of sound constitution and good reaction, the yaws may reach the full size of a mulberry in a month, in which case they will probably be few; but in persons of poor health they may take three months to attain the size of a wood-strawberry, in which case they will be numerous inversely to their size. Often there is one yaw much larger than the rest, and longer in falling; it is called the “master yaw” or “mother yaw.” On the soles of the feet (less often on the palms of the hands) the bursting yaws are as if imprisoned beneath the homy cuticle; they cause swelling and tenderness of the foot, until set free by paring the callous skin down to the quick; these yaws are called “crab yaws” or tubbas. Usually a yaw is painless unless when rubbed or irritated. The absence of pain is used as a diagnostic sign if there be any doubt as to the nature of the attack: a pustule is opened, and a little of the juice of capsicum dropped into it; if it be a yaw, no smarting will be felt. In some cases a few yaws will show themselves long after the primary attack is over; these are called “memba yaws” (from “remember ”), the term being sometimes applied also to protracted cases with successive crops of eruption. Six weeks is the average time in a good case, from the first of the eruption to the fall of the excrescences; in such regular cases a scar remains, it may be for many months, darker than the rest of the (Negro) skin. But the disease is often a much more tedious affair, the more protracted type having become common in the West Indies of recent years. In such cases the eruption comes out by degrees and as if with difficulty, crop after crop; foul, excavating, and corroding ulcers may remain, or a limb may be in part seamed and mutilated by the scars of old ulceration. The scars after ulceration are not so dark as the skin around.
That yaws is a communicable disease is beyond question; but that.it has always arisen by conveyance of yawey matter from a previous case is neither proved nor probable. Being to a great extent a disease of childhood, it is not usually conveyed after the manner of syphilis, but by contact in other ways (as in the epidemic syphilis of 1494-1520 and in recent circumscribed epidemics). An abrasion or wound of the surface, such as a chigoe bite or a cut of the foot, is a likely point of entrance for the virus. If the yawey matter finds access to a pre-existing sore or ulcer, it causes the latter to take on a foul and sloughing condition. No sore or yaw is induced at the point of infection, which will probably be healed long before the eruption appears. It is said, however, that the pustules appear earliest and in greatest numbers on the skin near the spot where the virus entered. They follow the infection at an [9:24:733] interval of several weeks (incubation period). Cases of yaws by infection are not unknown in white persons of good position, both children and adults, in the West Indies and elsewhere.
The nature of the disease is obscure. It is alleged to be hereditary by some, and denied to be so by others; the fact seems to be that some constitutions are much more susceptible than others, and susceptible at some periods or states of health more than at others. As an epidemic, the disease in a locality has seasons of activity and quiet. One attack in childhood gives a large degree of immunity for the rest of life. Yaws used to break out in the slaves on board Guineamen. Both in Africa and among the slaves in the West Indies it was a custom to inoculate the yaws, so as to get the attack over (called “buying the yaws”) or to get put upon the sick list.
As regards treatment, the malady in a person of good constitution runs its course and gets well in a few weeks. Whatever tends to check the eruption, such as exposure to chill, is to be avoided. A week’s course of cream of tartar and sulphur (confection of sulphur) at the beginning of the illness is often resorted to, so as to bring the eruption well out. The patient should remain indoors, in a well-aired room, and take daily warm baths and diluent drinks. If the excrescences are flabby and unhealthy, it is an indication for generous diet. Mercurial treatment is no longer in vogue. As external applications, weak lotions of zinc or carbolic acid may be used, and, if the excrescences are irritable, a watery solution of opium. Tedious and unhealthy yaws should be dressed with a wash of sulphate of zinc or of copper; the same may be applied to a yaw ulcer. The crab yaws of the horny soles or palms, after they are let through by paring the cuticle, may be dusted with alum powder. The most intractable cases occur in badly nourished and anaemic subjects, and these will often go on for months in hospital without mending. Of late in the West Indies the disease has become largely a morbus miseriae, and to that extent less amenable to treatment.
The date of the first appearance of yaws in the West Indies and Brazil is matter of dispute; the general belief is that it came in with the African Negro. After the emancipation in 1838 there was a marked decline in the prevalence of the disease in Jamaica and other colonies. In Jamaica it began to be seen again from 1854 to 1864, the cases being more of adult age than formerly. The worst recent centre of yaws has been Dominica, which is occupied by Negro communities unprovided with medical attendance. In 1871 the Government opened and maintained two special hospitals for yaws (under a board of commissioners), one at Morne Bruce near Roseau, and the other at Prince Rupert’s. In Barbados and Antigua cases of yaws are rarely seen, the population being more creole than Negro. Trinidad has a good deal of the disease from time to time in the inland villages; bad cases are admitted to the leper asylum at Port of Spain. In Grenada, which has a special yaws hospital, and in St Vincent the immigration of Hindu coolies received a check owing to the ravages made by the disease among them. It prevails also in San Domingo, Guadeloupe, and others of the Antilles. At Berbice and Essequibo there were 23 fatal cases in one year (1870). The disease is common in all parts of Brazil. In western Africa cases are found along the whole coast from the Senegal to the Congo, and in the interior (Timbuktu and Bornu). On the East Coast it is found in Mozambique, Madagascar, and the Comoros Its localities in the East Indies and islands of the Pacific have been already mentioned.
For the literature dealing with the subject, see Hirsch, Geographical and Historical Pathology (Engl. trans ), vol. ii., London, 1885 (New Sydenham Soc.). | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073301-0778m | YAZD, or Yezd, a city of Persia, capital of the district of Yazd, province of Farsistán, in 31° 50' N. lat. and 54° 25' E. long. Yazd stands on a flat sandy plain, about 50 miles broad and encircled by an amphitheatre of picturesque hills, on the high road between Ispahán and Karmán, 190 miles south-east of the former and 220 north-west of the latter place. The old and dilapidated walls enclose a very large space, which, however, is much encumbered with ruins, the population having fallen from about 100,000 at the beginning of the 19th century (Christie) to about 30,000 in 1868 (Smith). Since the famine of 1870 the place has recovered some of its former prosperity, and has at present (1888) an estimated population of 50,000, including 1000 Jews and about 4000 fire-worshippers, Yazd being the only town in Persia where these still form a separate community. There are fifty mosques, sixty-five public baths, eight public schools, but no building of any note except the chief mosque, a very old and decayed structure, which still presents a lofty and imposing frontage. With the exception of a fine new bazaar, which is well stocked with goods and much frequented the markets and other parts of the town are irregularly planned, with narrow dark streets and little life. Yazd is in fact a city of the wilderness, whose oasis, planted chiefly with mulberries and other fruit trees, is everywhere surrounded by the shifting sands, which at some points already threaten to encroach on the town itself (Macgregor). In this way was engulfed its predecessor, Old Yazd or Askizár, whose ruins are still visible 10 miles to the north-west on the road to Kashan. Nevertheless the local traders maintain their old reputation for intelligence and enterprise, and their agents still visit the distant markets of India, Java, and China. The trade with India formerly carried on through Shiráz now takes the more direct route through Karmán. The exports are chiefly sugar, silks, opium (4000 chests in a single year to China), cordage, cotton, felts, and copper; the imports wheat, rice, cotton goods, and henna. This henna, together with rang for dyeing the hair, is brought from the Mináb and Bandar-Abbás districts to be ground and prepared for the Persian market. From the neighbouring villages and the remote province of Ghilán comes the raw material for the silk-looms, which produce two kinds— kasb and aluhí —both of the very finest quality. Other noted products of the local industries are the felts, equal to the best in Karmán, and the candied sugars and sweetmeats, in the preparation of which the fire-worshippers excel. A great drawback to Yazd is the defective and irregular supply of water, which largely depends on the yearly snow and rainfall on the surrounding hills. The annual revenue averages £35,000 to £40,000, of which three-fifths go to the public treasury; the rest supports the local administration and household of the governor, who resides in a kind of citadel within the city walls | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 733 [9:24:733] | 31 50' N 54 25' E |
kp-eb0924-073302-0778m | YEADON, a manufacturing town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, is situated on a hill north of Airedale, about 1½ miles from Guiseley station on the Midland Railway and 8½ miles north-west of Leeds. The streets are generally irregular and tortuous, but within recent years greater care has been taken in the arrangement of new buildings. The church of St John in the Pointed Gothic style, erected in 1843, consists of chancel and nave, with square tower surmounted by pinnacles. The town-hall and mechanics’ institute, a handsome Gothic building erected in 1883, includes a large public hall, the rooms of the Liberal club and of the local board, and class and lecture rooms. Yeadon is chiefly of modern growth, although wool-combing and cloth manufacture were carried on to some extent before the establishment of the first woollen-mill in 1831. Since 1850 the town has made rapid progress, and now possesses several mills, in which woollen cloths are manufactured, especially materials for ladies’ jackets, ulsters, mantles, &c. The township was formed out of Guiseley in 1845. The local board of health was established in 1863. The population of the urban sanitary district (area 1723 acres) was 5246 in 1871 and 6534 in 1881. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073303-0778m | YEAR. See Calendar, vol. iv. p. 666. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073304-0778m | YEAST, an insoluble substance forming an essential component of all sacchariferous juices when in the state of vinous fermentation. This subject is pretty fully dealt with under Fermentation (see vol. ix. pp. 92, 95, 97); one important application of yeast, however, viz., that which it finds in the baker’s trade, is there only referred to. To produce a spongy loaf, the dough, before being made into loaves, is mixed with a ferment which, if allowed to act for a sufficient time before baking, produces alcohol and carbonic acid from a small portion of the actual or potential sugar present; and the carbonic acid, being liberated from within the dough, causes it to “rise.” In former times leaven (see Baking, vol. iii. p. 253) used to be employed exclusively. For higher classes of bakery yeast is now preferred. The yeast produced so abundantly [9:24:734] in beer-brewing is available; but its bitter taste is an objection to it. Hence it has long been customary in Germany to produce yeast expressly for bakers’ and cooks’ purposes, which may, of course, be done in a variety of ways. A method frequently used is to produce a wort (see Brewing, vol. iv. p. 275) from barley, malt, and rye, and by the addition of a little ready-made yeast to let it ferment under conditions which favour the growth of yeast-cells, but restrict the proportion of alcohol produced to a minimum (comp. Fermentation, vol. ix. p. 97). During the most tumultuous period of the process the yeast is skimmed off from the surface, washed with water, and either “filter-pressed” or “centrifuged” to obtain it as a relatively dry paste; it is then mixed with a proportion of dry starch, to give it a higher degree of dryness. Such yeast goes into commerce as presshefe or pfundhefe (German yeast or barm). This industry used to be a monopoly of Germany; but quite lately the manufacture of German yeast has been taken up in Scotland. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073401-0779m | YEDO. See Tokio. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073402-0779m | YEISK, a district town of the Russian province of Kuban (Caucasus), was founded in 1848 at the mouth of the Yeia, on a narrow sandbank which separates the shallow Bay of Yeisk from the Sea of Azoff, 108 miles to the south-west of Rostoff-on-the-Don. Notwithstanding its shallow roadstead, which has a depth of 14 feet only at 2 miles from the shore, Yeisk has grown with great rapidity, and in 1884 had 23,725 inhabitants. Corn, linseed, and wool are exported to a considerable extent (1,730,000 cwts. of corn and flax and 10,000 cwts. of wool in 1885), and the port was visited in 1886 by 69 ships (30,000 tons) engaged in foreign trade and by 697 (80,800 tons) engaged in the coasting trade. There are large woolcleansing factories, oil-works, and tanneries. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073403-0779m | YEKATERINBURG. For this and similar forms of Russian town-names, see Ekaterinburg, &c. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073404-0779m | YELETS, a district town of the Russian government of Orel, 121 miles by rail to the east of Orel, stands on the great trunk railway which connects Riga with Tsaritsyn on the lower Volga; a branch line connects it also with the railway which runs from Tula to Samara and Orenburg. Owing to its advantageous position Yelets, which had been for a long time an important entrepôt for the corn trade, has rapidly grown of late, and in 1883 had 36,680 inhabitants. The Yelets merchants buy large quantities of grain in the fertile neighbouring provinces, and send their agents to southern and south-eastern Russia; nearly 150 flour-mills, many of them driven by steam, prepare flour, which is forwarded chiefly to Moscow and partly to Riga. The trade in cattle is also very important. Yelets has become of late a manufacturing centre, and has some important tanneries, foundries for cast-iron and copper, tallowmelting works, sieve manufactories, &c. The town has several educational institutions. Its cathedral and two monasteries contain venerated historic relics.
Yelets is first mentioned in 1147, when it was a fort of Ryazan. The Polovtsys attacked it in the 12th century, and the Mongols destroyed it during their first invasion. The Tartars plundered it in 1415 and 1450; and it seems to have been completely abandoned in the latter half of the 15th century. Its development dates from the second half of the 17th century, when it became a centre for the trade with south Russia. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-073405-0779m | YELIZAVETGRAD. See Elizabethgrad. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 734 [9:24:734] | |
kp-eb0924-073406-0779m | YELIZAVETPOL. See Elizabethpol. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 734 [9:24:734] | |
kp-eb0924-073407-0779m | YELLOW FEVER is a typhus-like fever of certain ports, or of ships hailing from them. It differs from all other existing types of fevers and infections in largely sparing the Negro. It resembles cholera in being endemic in some parts of the world (but only shipping places) and in being importable to others, in being an infection that issues from the soil or some medium equivalent thereto, and in being a virulent filth-disease; but it differs from cholera in having at the outset a violent febrile paroxysm lasting two or three days. As a fever it resembles typhus; but it differs from typhus in all those “exogenous” characters wherein it resembles cholera. The generic place and affinities of yellow fever are perhaps best provided for in the nosology of Cullen: the symptoms are within the sphere of the organic nervous system; they stand for excitement first and prostration afterwards; and they are an effect of human effluvia. Its differentia among the “nervous” fevers due to “human effluvia” would be its maritime or amphibious habitat, its association with tropical heat, the chief part played by the liver in its symptomatology (on the lines of acute yellow atrophy), and the singular immunity of the Negro race.
An attack of yellow fever may follow definite exposure (such as landing at an endemic port) within a few hours, as in corresponding cases of cholera; but the outbreak of symptoms is more often delayed for a few days, the limit of “incubation” being about eight. The few hours’ languor, chilliness, headache, and muscular pains, which might be the precursors of any febrile attack, are followed by a peculiar look of the eyes and face, which is characteristic: the face is flushed, and the eyes suffused at first and then congested or ferrety, the nostrils and lips red, and the tongue scarlet,—these being the most obvious signs of universal congestion of the skin, mucous membranes, and organs. Meanwhile the temperature has risen to fever heat, and may reach a very high figure (maximum of 110° Fahr., it is said); the pulse is quick, strong, and full, but may not keep up in these characters with the high temperature throughout. There are all the usual accompaniments of high fever, including hot skin, failure of appetite, thirst, nausea, restlessness, and delirium (which may or may not be violent); albumen will nearly always be found in the urine. The fever is a continued one so long as it lasts; but the febrile excitement comes to an end after two or three days. In a certain class of ambulatory or masked cases the febrile reaction may never come out, and the shock of the infection after a brief interval may lead unexpectedly and directly to prostration and death. The cessation of the paroxysm makes the stadium, or lull, characteristic of yellow fever. The hitherto militant or violent symptoms cease, and prostration or collapse ensues. The internal heat falls below the normal; the action of the heart (pulse) becomes slow and feeble, the skin cold and of a lemon-yellow tint, the act of vomiting effortless, like that of an infant, the first vomit being clear fluid, but afterwards black from an admixture of blood. It is at this period that the prospect of recovery or of a fatal issue declares itself. The prostration following the paroxysm of fever may be no more than the weakness of commencing recovery, with copious flow of urine, which even then is very dark-coloured from the presence of blood. The prostration will be all the more profound according to the height reached by the temperature during the acute paroxysm. Much blood in the vomit and in the stools, together with all other haemorrhagic signs, is of evil omen. Constant hiccough, with loud cries or wailing, is a certain sign of death, which may also be ushered in by suppression of urine, coma, and convulsions, or by fainting from failure at the heart. The proportion of recoveries is usually less than one-half; but it has been now and then very large (as in the New Orleans epidemic of 1878). Convalescence is on the whole rapid; but, if some old disease, such as ague, have been lighted up, or abscesses induced, it may go on slowly for months. One attack of yellow fever confers a high degree of immunity from a second.
The treatment of yellow fever has been one of the classical subjects of controversy. In the Philadelphia epidemics of the end of [9:24:735] the 18th century, Rush gained much credit for his incessant labours in bleeding the victims during the violence of the paroxysm. Although blood-letting to relieve the congestions has been given up, experience still favours the resort to vigorous measures at the outset. The following practice was adopted with much success by Dr Joseph Jones during the epidemic of 1878 at New Orleans,—an emetic of ipecacuanha, followed by a powder of calomel (10 to 20 grains), with as much quinine added (the latter ingredient of doubtful utility), and that again followed by a full dose of castor oil. Beyond that heroic medication at the outset of the febrile paroxysm, the treatment was directed to assisting the action of the skin and kidneys, by keeping the temperature of the room uniform, by mustard foot-baths, and by copious draughts of lemonade or other aerated water, or of barley water. The diet indicated is fever diet: i.e ., it should exclude solid food. For such symptoms as tenderness over the stomach a mustard poultice is applied; for diminished secretion of urine, dry cupping over the loins. When the lull occurs, the patient should on no account be allowed to get up, as sudden failure of the heart is apt to follow exertion. Iced champagne and beef-tea are found to be the best supports for this stage. The only thing to do when black vomit threatens is to give the patient ice to suck, or (more questionably) to place an ice-bag on the abdomen. When the stage of prostration assumes a “typhoid” character, an enema of ice-cold water, with a little turpentine in it, helps to get rid of the flatus and to stimulate the kidneys. Recovery is in all cases more probable where there is abundant cubic space and good ventilation.
Yellow fever is of the nature of typhus, in the language of older writers, a nervous or putrid fever. The two salient things about it are the internal haemorrhages and the almost complete arrest of the function of the liver; of these the latter would seem to be primary and the former secondary. The state of the liver on examination after death from yellow fever is by far the most significant feature in the morbid anatomy: the bile-ducts and gallbladder are empty, or contain only a clear albuminoid fluid; the organ is bloodless and of a golden yellow colour; and the hepatic cells are everywhere full of fatty granules or other molecular detritus. It shows, in fact, the morbid anatomy of acute yellow atrophy, or that state of the hepatic structure and functions which is due to total inhibition or arrest (see Pathology, vol. xviii. p. 386), whether the inhibiting influence be phosphorus poisoning, or emotional strain, or something in the pregnant state, or the infective influence of yellow fever. All the other phenomena of this fever are grouped around the liver derangement, as around a centre, namely, the yellow tint of the skin, the fatty degeneration of the heart favouring syncope, the haemorrhages from the mucous membranes (including the black vomit), the degeneration of the renal epithelium with albuminuria, and the coma and convulsions. Yellow fever therefore may be styled a sudden or arbitrary infection imposed from without, the distinctive mark or “note” of which is the same peculiar group of symptoms that is found in the rare and sporadic cases of yellow atrophy. To reach the full and correct doctrine of yellow fever, we have to harmonize the clinical and pathological facts of the disease, as already given, with the historical, geographical, racial, and other associated circumstances now to be stated.
The first authentic account of yellow fever comes from Bridgetown, Barbados, in 1647, where it was recognized as a “nova pestis,” that was unaccountable in its origin, except that Ligon, the historian of the colony, who was then on the spot, connected it with the arrival of ships. It was the same new pestilence that Dutertre, writing in 1667, described as having occurred in the French colony of Guadeloupe in 1635 and 1640; it recurred at Guadeloupe in 1648, and broke out in a peculiarly disastrous form at St Kitt’s the same year, and again in 1652; in 1655 it was at Port Royal, Jamaica; and from those years onwards it became familiar at many harbours in the West Indies and Spanish Main, and in the Atlantic ports of the British American colonies. It is a question whether it had not occurred at Porto Rico, San Domingo, and other places in the Spanish Antilles a good many years before; but the reports from the colonies of New Spain, both for that and subsequent periods, are highly defective as regards the data needed to distinguish yellow fever from the bilious remittent form of malarial fever, which is a non-infective sickness. The Mexican form of typhus, called “matlazahuatl,” which has been an indigenous disease of the native population in the interior for several centuries, has no other connexion with yellow fever than that it belongs to the same family of typhus; its circumstances are quite different, especially in respect that it is a purely inland form of febris pauperum. In 1853 yellow fever appeared for the first time at Callao and Lima in Peru; and almost in the same months a severe epidemic prevailed among the plantation hands in the sierra region of the interior. The two forms were described as the same disease by Dr Archibald Smith; but the fever of the sierras was afterwards shown to be a form of typhus, analogous to the native Mexican form, and quite unconnected with the yellow fever of the coast.
In the harbours of the American colonies (United States) the history of yellow fever has been as follows. It begins to be heard of at Charleston in 1693, and at Philadelphia the same year. The South Carolina port has the fullest record of it, next in order in the earlier period being Philadelphia, New York, and Norfolk (Va.). Towards the end of the 18th century the ports of New England, as far north as New Hampshire, have visitations, and it begins to be quite common at Baltimore, Wilmington, Savannah, and New Orleans. At a still later period (within the 19th century) we find the centre of incidence shifting so as to include Mobile, Memphis, Natchez, St Francisville, and Baton Rouge; and in the most recent period outbreaks are recorded at Galveston and other ports of Texas, and at Pensacola, Vicksburg, and Key West. The Atlantic ports gradually lost it and the Gulf ports took up the inheritance, several of them keeping it still. Some of the epidemics were very disastrous, one of the Philadelphia outbreaks corresponding to the pestilence which figures in the last section of Longfellow’s Evangeline: “Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm the oppressor.” In the New Orleans epidemic of 1878 the deaths numbered 4056. The American ports mentioned have been only its principal seats, many other smaller harbours having had outbreaks now and then, such as New Haven (Conn.), Providence (R.I.), Swedesborough (N.J.), Alexandria (Va.), Augusta (Ga.), St Augustine (Fla.), Opelousas (La.), and Houston (Tex.).
Along with the harbours and anchorages of the West Indies and Spanish Main, the three chief harbours of Guiana (Cayenne, Surinam, and Demerara) have had an equal share, and for almost the same period. But for Brazilian ports there is no record of yellow fever until 1849, when it appeared for the first time at Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, and other places. These ports became endemic seats of the infection from that year, and are now more distinctively the headquarters of the disease than its old West Indian and Mexican Gulf centres. Monte Video had a disastrous epidemic in 1857, and Buenos Ayres a visitation in 1858; but the shipping places of the river Γlate are not in the same class of endemic foci as the harbours of Brazil.
There have been a few epidemics at trading places on the West Coast of Africa, most of them subsequent to 1820, and all of them confined generally to white residents.
During the great period of yellow fever (1793-1805), and for some years afterwards, the disease found its way time after time to various ports of Spain. Cadiz, indeed, suffered five epidemics in the 18th century, Malaga one, and Lisbon one; but from 1800 down to 1821 the disease assumed much more alarming proportions, Cadiz being still its chief seat, while Seville, Malaga, Cartagena, Barcelona, Palma, Gibraltar, and other shipping places suffered severely, as well as some of the country districts nearest to the ports. These Spanish outbreaks were clearly connected with the arrival of ships, but for the most part there had not been cases of yellow fever on board the ships. The last severe epidemic on Spanish soil was at Barcelona in the summer of 1821, when 5000 persons died. The most recent disastrous epidemic in Europe was at Lisbon in 1857, when upwards of 6000 died in a few weeks. The outbreaks at St Nazaire (1861), Leghorn, Swansea (1864), and Southampton have been carefully studied, but are otherwise of minor importance.
Yellow fever is dependent upon high summer temperature for its epidemic development, and it requires a good deal of heat to continue even after it has once acquired epidemic intensity. In its endemic centres in the New World it clings peculiarly to the lower quarters of the seaports, to the alluvial foreshores, and to the anchorages; on many occasions it has been prevalent among the crews of men-of-war and of merchantmen at anchor, or moored in the harbour, or lying up in the carénage, when there has been none of it among the residents ashore. It is admitted that the endemic influence which causes it is effluvial or miasmatic from the harbour mud, or from the bilge-water of a ship that had lain in the harbour, or from the alluvial foundations of houses nearest to the beach. So far as prevalence on shore is concerned, it seems to follow the same laws as cholera and typhoid fever: that is to say, it is an exogenous or soil infection, a fermentation of filth in the ground, with a seasonal activity closely following the movements of the subsoil water. In like manner, when it has been imported to Spain, it has clung to alluvial soil and has spread after the fashion of a soil-borne infection rather than by personal contagion, although in Spanish ports, just as in Philadelphia, according to Rush’s opinion, contagiousness has been found to be “contingent” to it under certain circumstances. To establish an epidemic in a distant port, it has been necessary that there should be carried thither a material quantity of the specifically poisonous harbour-filth in a ship’s bilges, and that the conditions favourable to its increase and diffusion by fermentation should exist in the new soil.
The next most significant thing in the incidence of this fever is that new arrivals at an indigenous centre are peculiarly liable to take it, and most liable of all the sailors and others from northern latitudes, such as Sweden, Finland, Holland, and Germany. In fact an epidemic outburst in a yellow-fever port or endemic centre [9:24:736] at the present day is commonly connected with an unusual influx of strangers. It is not to be supposed, however, that the residents acquire immunity by acclimatization: they have no greater immunity in that sense than have the Bengalis from cholera, or than those who permanently reside in unsanitary localities from typhoid fever or diphtheria. The only immunity is that of the Negro race, an immunity all the more striking that the Negroes in yellowfever ports are mostly found living in the favourite haunts of the disease, and that their race is peculiarly liable to all other infections of the kind, including cholera, typhus, and typhoid. Although the protection of the Negro of pure blood is not absolute, it is nearly so. In ordinary circumstances Negroes become liable when of mixed blood, and almost exactly in proportion to the degree of white stock in their breeding. These racial peculiarities have been so often remarked and are so universally admitted in their broad significance that no detailed proofs need be adduced. It may be stated, however, that all African Negroes, whether fresh from Africa or long acclimatized to the New World, have the same natural protection; thus the Nubian regiment in the French service during the Mexican expedition did not lose a single man, and did not even have a single case, in the epidemic at Vera Cruz in 1866. The protection is profoundly racial, and not due to the Negroes being inured to yellow-fever localities. There is no other instance of the same racial immunity in the whole range of infective sickness.
Two things stand out prominently in the foregoing recital of facts,—(1) that yellow fever, in time and place, has dogged the steps of the African slave trade, and (2) that the African Negro has a very large racial immunity from yellow fever. The first of these facts was generalized by Audouard (Paris, 1825), but has been neglected and forgotten; the second fact, which no one seriously disputes, is the complement and confirmation of the historical and geographical induction. The circumstances in Peru, although apparently in contradiction, are really corroborative: a form of yellow fever established itself at certain ports of that country in the wake of a notorious Chinese coolie trade (see Coolie, vol. vi. p. 334); but the Chinese themselves were exempt from the fever at the time, and would appear not to have suffered from it in the subsequent epidemics on the Peruvian coast. The question thus arises as to the particular connexion between the African slave trade (or the analogous Chinese coolie trade) and yellow fever. The first point is that the fever has not been a fever of the voyage but of the landing place, although there are several authentic instances (e.g., cases of the “Regalia” and “La Pique”) of yellow fever arising at sea from the exposure of white men to the stench of a shipful of Negroes. Again, the filthy condition of a Guineaman on her arrival from Africa was a notorious fact; and the filth of that kind was discharged into the creeks, carénages, and anchorages of slave ports in material quantity year after year for a long period. At Havana as many as a hundred slavers would arrive in one year. Steady accretions of the filth of slave-ships from the beginning of the traffic to America down to its abolition in 1808, and its final cessation previous to 1860, would account for a peculiarly pestiferous state of the harbour mud, of the beach, and even of the water; in fact, the water in the Bay of Havana was pestiferous and full of organic matter where it was several fathoms deep, and there was a standing order in the British navy against admitting it into ships. Wherever the harbours were most tideless, as around the Gulf of Mexico and in the West Indian Islands, and wherever the soil was most alluvial, and the movements of the ground-water most extensive, the specific putrefaction or fermentation thus introduced into the harbour would spread farthest on shore, being aided or encouraged always by the abundance of other organic matter which it met with at particular spots, such as the foundations of houses.
The next step is to consider the connexion between this wholesale befouling of slave ports and the particular type of endemic disease. One of the points most emphasized by Audouard was the fundamental physiological differences between the African Negro race and the white. The discharges of the Negro body might become by their effluvia specifically poisonous, he argued, to white men under special circumstances. A more direct factor in the aetiology was the very common, if not uniform, prevalence of dysentery and diarrhoea in the passage from the Guinea coast to the western shores of the Atlantic: the filth in a slave-ship’s bilges was, in part at least, dysenteric in its source and properties. Now, there is much independent evidence, collected from times of war and famine, to prove a certain correlation or equivalence between dysentery and typhus; according to Blane’s phrase, the one was vicarious to the other. Yellow fever is admittedly a form of typhus, a form distinguished by a haemorrhagic tendency. Thus we find the connexion explained between dysenteric and other evacuations of the Negro race, carried to the mud and alluvial soil of ports under very peculiar circumstances, and a special form of endemic typhus, differing from the ordinary form in being earth-borne instead of airborne. The remaining part of the synthesis concerns the differential type of yellow fever within the genus “typhus Whence did it obtain the “note” or distinctive mark, anatomical and clinical, of an acute yellow atrophy of the liver? The dysenteric filth that was imported into the harbours of the New World represented that almost unique unwholesomeness of life which is summed up in the phrase “horrors of the middle passage.” Among such horrors nostalgia, despair, and the sense of wrong were not the least; and these are among the states of human feeling that have been known, now and then, in the ordinary way of life to assume that peculiar visceral embodiment, or to find that means of expression, which amounts to acute yellow atrophy of the liver, and stands, in fact, for a total arrest of the hepatic functions, biliary and other.
There is no other theory of yellow fever to contest the field with the slave-trade hypothesis; that alone satisfies all the conditions of a correct synthesis—historical, geographical, ethnological, physiological, and, some would say, even ethical. There have been various other theories put forward from time to time, all of them much too fragmentary, and therefore erroneous, such as the hypothesis of rotting timber (in wharves, ships’ hulls, &c.), of sugar cargoes, of common foul bilge-water, of madrepores, and of bacilli. The bacillary or parasitic hypothesis is the fashionable one at present, but it is much too ambitious, as ordinarily held, and altogether wide of the mark. The part played by putrefactive organisms is a subordinate one. In the general grouping of factors they can only come in after we have found the specific integral of the yellow-fever soil in its endemic seats; they cannot elaborate the miasmatic poison of yellow fever without a definite pabulum, any more than the “lactic bacillus” can produce lactic fermentation without milk-sugar.
The sanitary or public health aspects of yellow fever have been discussed in great part under Quarantine (vol. xx. p. 156). In regard to its sanitation at the endemic seats in the West Indies, Guiana, Brazil, Central America, and the Gulf States of the American Union, the same principles apply as to other filth-diseases. The object is to secure a clean soil, and to that end drainage and sewerage serve best. In the sanitation of yellow fever the case is so far peculiar that the harbour bottom, the adjoining mudbanks and mangrove swamps, and even the seawater itself, are apt to retain the specific taint, especially where the cleansing action of the tides is slight. But there is good reason to think that the specific taint in the soil is everywhere slowly disappearing, now that it is no longer reinforced by fresh supplies year after year. It has practically vanished from the Atlantic ports of the United States, and has become almost rare in such harbours as Port Royal, Jamaica. Its headquarters are now the Brazilian ports, which were the last to develop it (in 1849).
Literature.— The chief work is that of La Roche, Yellow Fever, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1855. A very full bibliography is given by Hirsch at the end of his section on “Yellow Fever,” in Historisch-Geographische Pathologie, vol. i., Stuttgart, 1881 (Engl. transl. by Creighton, London, 1883). Recent experience, epidemiological and clinical, is given in the writings (2 vols.) of Dr Joseph Jones of New Orleans, 1887; see also Maclean’s Diseases of Tropical Climates, London, 1886. Among the numerous monographs may be specially mentioned those of Pym (Observations upon the Bulam Fever, London, 1815), who showed that one attack gave immunity, and of Daniel Blair (Some Account of the Last Yellow Fever Epidemic of British Guiana, with plates, 3d ed., London, 1852). A popular exposition of the slave-trade hypothesis of Audouard (with additions by the writer of the present article) will be found in North. Amer. Rev., October 18S4. Audouard’s three papers were collected under the title Recueil de Mémoires sur le Typhus Nautique, ou Fièvre Jaune, Paris, 1825. (C. C.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 734 [9:24:734] | |
kp-eb0924-073601-0781m | YELLOW RIVER. See China, vol. v. pp. 630-631. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 736 [9:24:736] | |
kp-eb0924-073602-0781m | YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, an area situated mainly in north-western Wyoming, United States, which has been withdrawn from settlement by the United States Government and dedicated to the purposes of a public park. It is a region of hot springs and geysers, mountains and canons, lakes and waterfalls. While it is almost entirely comprised in Wyoming, a narrow strip 2 miles wide projects on the north into Montana, and on the west a strip about 5 miles in width projects into the same Territory and into Idaho. Its boundaries, which were defined at a time when the country was little known, are as follows. The northern boundary is a parallel of latitude running through the mouth of Gardiner river, a branch of the Yellowstone, 2 miles north of 45° N. The eastern boundary is a meridian 10 miles east of the most easterly point of Yellowstone Lake, which places it almost on the 110th meridian. The southern boundary is a parallel 10 miles south of the most southerly portion of the same body of water, in lat. 44° 10' N. The western boundary is a meridian 15 miles west of the most westerly portion of Madison (now Shoshone) Lake, this meridian being approximately that of 111° 6'. The Park is therefore very nearly a rectangle in shape, its length north and south being 61∙8 miles and its breadth 53∙6. Its area is 3312 square miles.
Its surface is mainly an undulating plateau, with a mean [9:24:737] elevation above the sea of about 8000 feet, upon the surface of which the minor streams flow, while the larger ones have cut canons for themselves, several of them being of great depth. The eastern portion, however, is occupied by an extremely rugged mountain chain, known as the Absaroka Range, peaks of which rise to heights exceeding 11,000 feet. These mountains, which separate the waters of the Yellowstone from those of the Big Horn, are unsurpassed in the United States for sublimity and grandeur of scenery. The Gallatin Range, which separates the Yellowstone from the Gallatin river, enters the Park near the north-western corner and extends southwards some 20 miles within it. It reaches its culminating point in Electric Peak, 11,050 feet high, just within the Park boundary. Another group of mountains, in the form of a horseshoe, occurs near the middle of the Park, known as the Washburne Mountains, the highest summit of which, Mount Washburne, has an elevation of 10,346 feet. The Red Mountains are in the southern part, their culminating peak being Mount Sheridan, 10,385 feet in height. In this part of the Park the plateau is more elevated and broken, and just beyond its southern limits it rises into a confused maze of mountains.
The Park has an abundant rainfall, and its streams are numerous and bold. It contains many beautiful lakes and ponds. Within its area are the sources of the Yellowstone and the Madison, which go to make up the Missouri, and of the Snake, one of the forks of the Columbia. This last stream, which drains the south-western part, takes its rise in several branches, among them being Lewis Fork, which has its origin in the beautiful Shoshone Lake, and Heart river, which rises in Heart Lake, under the shadow of Mount Sheridan. The Yellowstone drains the eastern part. Rising just beyond its southern limits, it flows into and through Yellowstone Lake, a magnificent sheet of water, of very irregular shape, having an area of 150 square miles. A few miles below the lake, the river, after a succession of rapids, leaps over a cliff, making the Upper Fall, 112 feet in height. Half a mile lower down it rolls over the Lower Fall, which has a clear descent of 300 feet. The river at this point carries, at the average stage of water, about 1200 cubic feet per second. With this fall the river enters the Grand Canon, which in many scenic effects has not its equal on the globe. Its depth is not great, at least as compared with the canons upon the Colorado river system, ranging from 600 feet at its head to 1200 near the middle, where it passes the Washburne Mountains. Its length to the mouth of Lamar river is 24 miles. It is cut in a volcanic plateau, and its ragged broken walls, which are inclined at very steep angles, are of a barbaric richness of colouring that almost defies description. Reds, yellows, and purples predominate, and are set off very effectively against the dark green of the forests upon the plateau, and the white foam oi the rushing river which fills the bottom of the chasm. Near the foot of the Grand Canon, Tower creek, which drains the concavity of the horseshoe formed by the Washburne Mountains, enters the Yellowstone. Just above its mouth this stream makes a beautiful fall of 132 feet into the gorge in which it joins the river. A few miles farther down the Yellowstone is joined by an eastern branch, Lamar river, which drains a large part of the Absaroka Range. Then it enters the Third Canon, from which it emerges at the mouth of Gardiner river. The latter stream drains an area of elevated land by means of its three forks, and upon each of them occurs a fine fall in its descent toward the Yellowstone. The Madison rises in the western part of the Park and flows in a generally northward and then westward course out of the Park. Its waters are mainly collected from the rainfall upon the plateaus, and from the hot springs and geysers, most of which are within its drainage area. Upon this river and its affluents are several fine falls. Indeed all the streams of this region show evidence, in the character of their courses, of a recent change of level in the surface of the country.
The climate is characterized by a considerable degree of humidity and a heavy rainfall, as compared with adjacent portions of the West. The temperature is that of a semi-arctic region. Frost may occur in midsummer and snow begins to fall in September.
The native fauna is abundant and varied. The policy of the Government, which protects game within this reservation, has induced it to take shelter here against the sportsman and pot-hunter, so that elk, deer, antelope, mountain sheep, bear, and numerous smaller game animals are very abundant and tame. The only herd of wild bisons left in the United States is upon this reservation; and in some parts moose are occasionally seen.
The flora is very varied. With the exception of a few limited areas in the northern part, the region is covered with forests, generally so dense that landmarks are invisible and the traveller is forced to guide himself by the sun or by compass. The trees are mainly the Douglas spruce and the yellow pine, and are not of large size or great commercial value.
The surface of the park is almost entirely covered with volcanic rocks. The Gallatin Range, however, in the north-western corner, is made up of stratified beds ranging from the Silurian system up to the Cretaceous. In a few localities also Tertiary lake beds and local drift are found. The plateaus generally are composed of rhyolite, while the mountain ranges are made up of later volcanic deposits, mainly conglomerates. In this region the ancient volcanic fires, which formerly extended far and wide, especially to the south and west, are still in existence, as is shown by the vast numbers of hot springs and geysers. The number of the former is by a close estimate not less than 3000, varying in size from a few inches in diameter to an area of many acres. The number of active geysers is 71. These phenomena are found in groups in numerous localities, the most important of which—for they contain most of the great geysers—are the Upper and the Lower Geyser basins, near the head of the Madison, here known as the Firehole, river. The former contains 26 geysers, several of which are of such power as to throw water to heights exceeding 200 feet, and the amount of water thrown out is so great as to raise the temperature of the river water many degrees. The Lower basin contains 16 geysers. The Norris basin, upon Gibbon river, a branch of the Madison, contains 9 geysers, and the Shoshone basin, upon the shore of Shoshone Lake, contains 8 active spouters. Others are found at Heart Lake, upon Pelican creek, in Hayden’s valley, and in Monument basin. In all these localities the water holds silica in solution in considerable quantities, so that as it cools and evaporates it deposits siliceous matter, which has covered with a hard white floor many square miles of these valleys, and has built up craters around the springs and geysers of considerable size and great beauty of form. Besides silica, the water of many of the springs contains sulphur, iron, alum, and other materials in solution, which in places stain the pure white of the siliceous deposits with bright bands of colour. Upon Gardiner river, near the northern boundary of the Park, there is a large group of springs, known as the Mammoth Hot Springs, which differ from the others in holding carbonate of lime in solution. These springs have deposited so freely as to build up a hill 200 feet in height, from the top of which the springs boil out. The slopes of this mound have been built in the form of a succession of basins rising one above another, and the water from the springs overflows from one into another, growing gradually cooler as it descends. Upon the bank of Yellowstone river, between the falls and the lake, there was, when the region was first explored, a geyser which at intervals of about 4 hours threw up a column of mud to a height of 40 or 50 feet. In more recent times this geyser has ceased action. These phenomena have been under observation since 1871; and, while there have been changes in them, certain geysers having ceased and others having been formed, no evidence of a diminution of power has been observed.
The Park is accessible by means of the Northern Pacific Railroad, by a branch which extends up the valley of the Yellowstone within a few miles of the northern boundary; and with this a line of stage coaches is connected.
The most stringent laws have been enacted in regard to the killing of game, the starting of forest fires, and the removal of the deposits of the springs.
Although exploring parties had at various times passed on all sides of this strange region, its wonders remained undiscovered until so late a period as 1870. This fact is all the more remarkable because at that time the frontier of settlement was in the Gallatin valley, not a hundred miles from the great geyser region. Some rumours of hot springs and geysers, coming from stray trappers and Indians, had been received, however, and these were sufficient to start a party from the Montana settlements in 1870, to investigate the strange tales. The discoveries made by this, the Washburne party, induced Dr F. V. Hayden, then in charge of a Government survey, to turn his explorations in this direction. The reports [9:24:738] brought back by him induced Congress to reserve this area from settlement, which was done in the spring of 1872. In that year further explorations were made, and in subsequent years army expeditions carried the work of exploration still farther. In 1878 a map of the Park, based upon triangulation, was drawn up by the Hayden survey, and in 1883-85 a more detailed map was made by the United States Geological Survey, and a systematic study of its geological phenomena was instituted. (H. G*.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 736 [9:24:736] | |
kp-eb0924-073801-0783m | YELLOW-TAIL. This name is given by seafaring men to a variety of marine fishes, chiefly of the family of Horse-Mackerels, which have this in common, that they are edible and have a yellow caudal fin. As the latter peculiarity, which has found expression in the specific names of chrysurus, xanthurus, &c., of systematic ichthyology, is not confined to that family, very different kinds of fishes bear the same name: thus, for instance, the fishermen of the United States apply it to species of the Meagre family (Sciaenidae) and to others. Economically the most important kinds of these fishes, the yellow-tail of the South Atlantic and the southern Indo-Pacific Ocean, are species of the genera Seriola, Seriolichthys, and Micro-vteryx, some of which, like Seriola lalandii and S. gigas, attain to the size of a cod or a coal-fish, and are preserved in a similar manner, either salted or dried. They abound in many localities, and are valued as food fish everywhere. They form a large proportion of the dried fish which are exported from the Cape of Good Hope to Mauritius and Batavia, or are sold to the whalers visiting the Southern Ocean. They are equally abundant at St Helena, where, however, their value as an article of trade does not seem to be fully understood. On the coasts of South Australia and New Zealand they are likewise a staple article of food, but are chiefly eaten fresh, the most esteemed species being Seriola lalandii, also known to the colonists as the “king-fish.” | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
TRANSCRIPTION (v1.1), The Nineteenth-Century Knowledge Project, 2025
19kp@temple.edu, https://tu-plogan.github.io/.
License: CC-BY-4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 738 [9:24:738] | |
kp-eb0924-073802-0783m | YEMEN, in Arabia, literally the land “on the right hand” of one who faces east, meant originally all the land southwards from Syria (Shám). The Arabia Felix (ϵύδαίμωv ) of Ptolemy and other ancients is a mistranslation, the right hand being taken to mean “lucky” (δϵξιόs, dexter). Arabia Felix included all Arabia except the peninsula of Sinai (Arabia Petraea) and the Syrian desert (Arabia Deserta): i.e., it took in the Hijáz and Nejd as well as South Arabia. The Arabs use the term Yemen in various extensions. A tradition of the Prophet makes Yemen and Shám meet at Tabbák; but Abú ‘Abbás already confines the name to all Arabia south of Mecca. This usage, which excludes Nejd and Hijáz from Yemen, is not merely that of Moslem geographers, who take Mecca as their imaginary standpoint, but is found in the heathen poets. When Imraolkais speaks of a Yemenite trader, Tarafa, of tanned ox-hides from Yemen, Labíd of a youth from Yemen who knew letters, or a poet of Hodhail of the excellent work of a Yemenite smith, they all mean by Yemen the southern region where trade, letters, and industry had their early home in the peninsula. The northern boundary of Yemen is variously laid down. Al-Asma'í makes it a line drawn obliquely from 'Omán to Nejrán; but Hamdání rightly draws it farther north, from 'Omán and Yebrín in the south of Yemáma by way of Al-Hujaira, Tathlíth, and Jorash to Kodommol (Kotumble of the Admiralty chart, in lat. 17° 52'). In its narrowest limitation Yemen comprises, not the whole south of the peninsula, but only the south-west as far as Hadramaut, which was viewed as a dependency of Yemen. The physical conformation of the south-western portion of the peninsula differs greatly from that of Arabia proper, being similar to that of Ethiopia. A range of mountains, which rises into peaks of considerable elevation, and descends with a steep slope towards the shore of the Red Sea, stretches from the southern extremity northwards as far as Táif. This range is pierced by several streams and wadies, which flow into the Red Sea.^[1. An excellent topographical description of Yemen is given in Ham-dání’s Geogr. d. Arab. Halbinsel, ed. D. H. Miiller (1884). ] In old times the region cannot of course have been called “the Southland” by its own inhabitants.
Sabaeans.— The ancient name of the people of Yemen was Saba (Saba’ with final hemza) ; and the oldest notices of them are in the Hebrew Scriptures. The list of the sons of Joktan in Gen. x. 26-29 contains in genealogical form a record of peoples of South Arabia which must rest on good information from Yemen itself. Many of these names are found on the inscriptions or in the Arabic geographers,—Sheba (Saba’), Hazarmaveth (Hadramaut), Abimael (Abime'athtar), Jobab (Yuhaibib, according to Halévy), Jerah (Waráh of the geographers), Joktan (Arab Kahtan; wakata = kahata). On the other hand, the names of some famous nations mentioned on the inscriptions are lacking, from which it may be concluded that they did not rise to prominence till a later date. Saba’ (Sheba) itself, which was in later times the chief name, has in Gen. x. 28 a subordinate place; it was perhaps only a collective name for the companies of merchants who conducted the South-Arabian export trade (the root saba' in the inscriptions meaning to make a trading journey), and in that case would be of such late origin as to hold one of the last places in a list that has genealogical form. Two other accounts in Genesis, originally independent, give supplementary information drawn from the Sabaean colonies, the stations and factories established to facilitate trade through the desert. The inscriptions of Al-'Ola published by D. H. Miiller show that there were Minaean colonies in North Arabia. Other South Arabs, and especially the Sabaeans, doubtless also planted settlers on the northern trade routes, who in process of time united into one community with their North-Arab kinsmen and neighbours. Thus we can understand how in Gen. xxv. 2-3 Sheba and Dedan appear among the North-Arab “sons of Keturah.” Again, the Sabaeans had colonies in Africa and there mingled with the black Africans; and so in Gen. x. 7 Sheba and Dedan, the sons of Raamah (Raghma), appear in the genealogy of the Cushites. With the Ethiopians Saba' means “men,” a clear indication of their Sabaean descent.
The queen of Sheba who visited Solomon may have come with a caravan trading to Gaza, to see the great king [9:24:739] whose ships plied on the Red Sea. The other Biblical books do not mention the Sabaeans except incidentally, in allusion to their trade in incense and perfumes, gold and precious stones, ivory, ebony, and costly garments (Jer. vi. 20; Ezek. xxvii. 15, 20, 22 sq.; Isa. lx. 6; Job vi. 19). These passages attest the wealth and trading importance of Saba from the days of Solomon to those of Cyrus. When the prologue to Job speaks of plundering Sabaeans (and Chaldaeans) on the northern skirts of Arabia, these may be either colonists or caravans, which, like the old Phoenician and Greek traders, combined on occasion robbery with trade. The prologue may not be historical; but it is to be presumed that it deals with historical possibilities, and is good evidence thus far.
The Biblical picture of the Sabaean kingdom is confirmed and supplemented by the Assyrian inscriptions. Tiglath Pileser II. (733 B.C.) tells us that Teima, Saba’, and Haipá ( = Ephah, Gen. xxv. 4 and Isa. lx. 6) paid him tribute of gold, silver, and much incense. Similarly Sargon (715 b.c. ) in his Annals mentions the tribute of Shamsi, queen of Arabia, and of Itamara of the land of Saba’,—gold and fragrant spices, horses and camels.
The earliest Greek accounts of the Sabaeans and other South-Arabian peoples are of the 3d century b.c. Eratosthenes (276-194 b.c. ) in Strabo (xv. 4, 2) says that the extreme south of Arabia, over against Ethiopia, is inhabited by four great nations,—the Minaeans (M ϵιvαῐoι , Μ ηναῐοι ; Ma'ín of the inscriptions) on the Red Sea, whose chief city is Cama; next to them the Sabaeans, whose capital is Mariaba (Mariab of the inscriptions); then the Cata-banes (Katabán of the inscriptions), near the Straits of Báb-al-Mandeb, the seat of whose king is Tamna; fourthly, and farthest east, the people of Hadramaut (Chatramotitae), with their city Sabota. The Catabanes produce frankincense and Hadramaut myrrh, and there is a trade in these and other spices with merchants who make the journey from Aelana (Elath, on the Gulf of 'Akaba) to Minaea in seventy days; the Gabaeans (the Gaba’án of the inscriptions, Pliny’s Gebanitae) take forty days to go to Hadramaut. This short but important and well-informed notice is followed a little later by that of Agatharchides (120 b.c. ), who speaks in glowing terms of the wealth and greatness of the Sabaeans, but seems to have less exact information than Eratosthenes. He knows only the Sabaeans and thinks that Saba is the name of their capital. He mentions, however, the “happy islands” beyond the straits, the station of the Indian trade (§ 103). Artemidorus (100 b.c. ), quoted by Strabo, gives a similar account of the Sabaeans and their capital Mariaba, of their wealth and trade, adding the characteristic feature that each tribe receives the wares and passes them on to its neighbours as far as Syria and Mesopotamia.
The accounts of the wealth of the Sabaeans brought back by traders and travellers excited the cupidity of Rome, and Augustus entrusted Aelius Gallus with an expedition to South Arabia, of which we have an authentic account in Strabo (xvi. 4, 22). He hoped for assistance from the friendly Nabataeans (q.v.) ; but, as they owed everything to their position as middlemen for the South-Arabian trade, which a direct communication between Rome and the Sabaeans would have ruined, their viceroy Syllaeus, who did not dare openly to refuse help, sought to frustrate the emperor’s scheme by craft. Instead of showing the Romans the caravan route, he induced them to sail from Cleopatris to Leucocome, and then led them by a circuitous way through waterless regions, so that they reached South Arabia too much weakened to effect anything. But the expedition brought back a considerable knowledge of the country and its products, and the Roman leader seems to have perceived that the best entrance to South Arabia was from the havens on the coast. So at least we may conclude when, a hundred years later (77 a.d., as Dillmann has shown), in the Periplus of an anonymous contemporary of Pliny (§ 23) we read that Charibael of Zafar, “the legitimate sovereign of two nations, the Homerites and Sabaeans,” maintained friendly relations with Rome by frequent embassies and gifts. Pliny’s account of Yemen, too, must be largely drawn from the expedition of Gallus, though he also used itineraries of travellers to India, like the Periplus Maris Erythraei just quoted.
Nautical improvements, and the discovery that the south-west monsoon (Hippalus) gave sure navigation at certain seasons, increased the connexion of the West with South Arabia, but also wrought such a change in the trade as involved a revolution in the state of that country. The hegemony of the Sabaeans now yields to that of a new people, the Homerites or Himyar, and the king henceforth bears the title “king of the Himyarites and Sabaeans.” Naval expeditions from Berenice and Myoshormus to the Arabian ports brought back the information on which Claudius Ptolemy constructed his map, which still surprises us by its wealth of geographical names.
Sabaean colonies in Africa have been already mentioned. That Abyssinia was peopled from South Arabia is proved by its language and writing; but the difference between the two languages is such as to imply that the settlement was very early and that there were many centuries of separation, during which the Abyssinians were exposed to foreign influences. New colonies, however, seem to have followed from time to time, and, according to the Periplus (§ 16), some parts of the African coast were under the suzerainty of the Sabaean kings as late as the Sabaeo-Himyaritic period; the district of Azania was held for the Sabaean monarch by the governor of Maphoritis (Ma'áfir), and was exploited by a Sabaean company. Naturally difficulties would arise between Abyssinia and the Sabaean power. In the inscription of Adulis (2d century) the king of Ethiopia claims to have made war in Arabia from Leucocome to the land of the Sabaean king. And the Ethiopians were not without successes, for on the Greek inscription of Aksúm (c. the middle of the 4th century) King Aeizanes calls himself “king of the Aksumites, the Homerites, and Raidán, and of the Ethiopians, Sabaeans, and Silee.” More serious was the conflict under Dhú-Nu’ás (Dhú-Nuwás of the Arab historians) in the beginning of the 6th century; it ended in the overthrow of the Himyarite king and the subjugation of Yemen, which was governed by a deputy of the Aksumite king, till (about 570) the conquerors were overthrown by a small band of Persian adventurers (see Persia, vol. xviii. p. 613).
With the exception of what the South-Arabian Hamdání relates of his own observation or from authentic tradition, the Mohammedan Arabic accounts of South Arabia and Sabaea are of little worth. The great event they dwell on is the bursting of the dam of Ma’rib, which led to the emigration northwards of the Yemenite tribes. We may be sure that this event was not the cause but the consequence of the decline of the country. When the inland trade fell away and the traffic of the coast towns took the sea route, the ancient metropolis and the numerous inland emporia came to ruin, while the many colonies in the north were broken up and their population dispersed. To this the Koran alludes in its oracular style, when it speaks (xxxiv. 17) of well-known cities which God appointed as trading stations between the Sabaeans and the cities He had blessed (Egypt and Syria), and which He destroyed because of their sins.
Inscriptions.— This abstract of the history of Yemen from ancient sources can now be verified and supplemented from inscriptions. Doubts as to the greatness and importance of the Sabaean state, as [9:24:740] attested by the ancients, and as to the existence of a special Sabaean writing, called “Musnad,” of which the Arabs tell, were still current when Niebuhr, in the 18th century, brought to Europe the first account of the existence of ancient inscriptions (not seen by himself) in the neighbourhood of Yarím. Following this hint, Seetzen, in 1810, was able to send to Europe, from porphyry blocks near Yarím, the first copies of Sabaean inscriptions. They could not, however, be read. But the inscriptions found by Wellsted in 1834 at Hisn Ghoráb were deciphered by Gesenius and Rödiger. Soon after this the courageous explorer Arnaud discovered the ancient Mariab, the royal city of the Sabaeans, and at great risk copied fifty-six inscriptions and took a plan of the walls, the dam, and the temple to the east of the city. These, with other inscriptions on stone and on bronze plates brought home by Englishmen, found a cautious and sound interpreter in Osiander. The historical and geographical researches of Kremer and Sprenger gave a fresh impulse to inquiry. Then Joseph Halévy made his remarkable journey through the Jauf, visiting districts and ruins which no European foot had trod since the expedition of Gallus, and returned with almost 800 inscriptions. Of more recent travellers S. Langer and E. Glaser have done most for epigraphy, while Manzoni is to be remembered for his excellent geographical work.
The alphabet of the Sabaean inscriptions is most closely akin to the Ethiopic, but is purely consonantal, without the modifications in the consonantal forms which Ethiopic has devised to express vowels. There are twenty-nine letters, one more than in Arabic, Samech and Sin being distinct forms, as in Hebrew. This alphabet, which is probably the parent of the South-Indian character, is undoubtedly derived from the so-called Phoenician alphabet, the connecting link being the forms of the Safa inscriptions and of the Thamudaean inscriptions found by Doughty and Euting. Of the latter we can determine twenty-six characters, while a twentyseventh probably corresponds to Arabic z (b). A sign for also probably existed, but does not occur in the known inscriptions. In the Thamudaean and Sabaean alphabets the twenty-two original Phoenician characters are mostly similar, and so are the differentiated forms for ^and while <A>, 3, and probably also la and have been differentiated in different ways. This seems to imply that the two alphabets had a common history up to a certain point, but parted company before they were fully developed. The Thamudaean inscriptions are locally nearer to Phcenicia, and the letters are more like the Phoenician; this character therefore appears to be the link connecting Phoenician with Sabaean writing. It may be noticed that a Thamudaean legend has been found on a Babylonian cylinder of about 1000 b.c., and it is remarkable that the Sabaean satara, “write,” seems to be borrowed from Assyrian shatâru.
The language of the inscriptions is South Semitic, forming a link between the North Arabic and the Ethiopic, but is much nearer the former than the latter. To the details already given in the article Semitic Languages (vol. xxi. p. 653 sq. ) it may be added that of the two dialects commonly called Sabaean and Minaean the latter might be better called Hadramitic, inasmuch as it is the dialect of the inscriptions found in Hadramaut, and the Minaeans seem undoubtedly to have entered the Jauf from Hadramaut.
The inscriptions not only give names of nations corresponding to those in the Bible and in classical authors but throw a good deal of fresh light on the political history of Yemen. The inscriptions and coins give the names of more than forty-five Sabaean kings. The chronology is still vague, since only a few very late inscriptions are dated by an era and the era itself is not certain. But the rulers named can be assigned to three periods, according as they bear the title “mukrab of Saba,” “king of Saba,” or “king of Saba and Raidân.” The last, as we know from the Aksum inscriptions, are the latest, and those with the title “mukrab” must be the earliest. Four princes of the oldest period bear the name Yatha'amar, and one of these may, with the greatest probability, be held to be the “Itamara Sabai” who paid tribute to Sargon of Assyria. This helps us to the age of some buildings also. The famous dam of Ma’rib and its sluices were the work of this ancient prince—structures which Arnaud in the 19th century found in the same state in which Hamdání saw them a thousand years ago. The power of these old sovereigns extended far beyond Ma’rib, for their names are found on buildings and monuments in the Jauf.
We cannot tell when the kings took the place of the mukrab, but the Sabaeo-Himyaritic period seems to begin with, or a little after, the expedition of Aelius Gallus. A fragmentary inscription of Ma’rib (Br. Mus., 33) was made by “Ilsharh Yahdib and Ya’zil Bayyin, the two kings of Saba and Raidán, sons of Far'm Yanhab, king of Saba.” If this Ilsharh is identical with the 'Ι λάσσαρos of Strabo, king of Mariaba at the time of the Roman invasion, the inscription preserves a trace of the influence of that event on the union of the two kingdoms.
The inscriptions of the latest period present a series of dates—669, 640, 582, 573, 385—of an unknown era. Reinaud thought of the Seleucid era, which is not impossible; but Halévy observes that the fortress of Mawiyyat (now Hisn Ghoráb) bears the date 640, and is said to have been erected “when the Abyssinians overran the country and destroyed the king of Himyar and his princes.” Referring this to the death of Dhú Nuwás (525 A.D.), Halévy fixes 115 b.c. as the epoch of the Sabaean era. This ingenious combination accords well with the circumstance that the oldest dated inscription, of the year 385 (270 a.d.), mentions 'Athtar, Shams, and other heathen deities, while the inscriptions of 582 (467 a.d.) and 573 (458 a.d.), so far as they can be read, contain no name of a heathen god, but do speak of a god Rahmánán—that is, the Hebrew Rahman, “the compassionate” (Arabic, Al-Rahmán), agreeably with the fact that Jewish and Christian influences were powerful in Arabia in the 4th century. The only objections to Halévy’s hypothesis are (1) that we know nothing of an epoch-making event in 115 b.c., and (2) that it is a little remarkable that the latest dated inscription, of the year 669 (554 a.d.), should be twenty-five years later than the Abyssinian conquest. An inscription found by Wrede at 'Obne is dated “in the year 120 of the Lion in Heaven,” which we must leave the astronomers to explain.
The inscriptions throw considerable light not only on the Sabaeans but on other South-Arabian nations. The Minaeans, whose importance has been already indicated, appear in the inscriptions as only second to the Sabaeans, and with details which have put an end to much guesswork, e.g., to the idea that they are connected with Mina near Mecca. Their capital, Ma'ín, lay in the heart of the Sabaean country, forming a sort of enclave on the right hand of the road that leads northward from Ma’rib. South-west of Ma'ín, on the west of the mountain range, and commanding the road from San'a to the north, lies Barákísh, anciently Yathil, which the inscriptions and Arabic geographers always mention with Ma'ín. The third Minaean fortress, probably identical with the Κάρνα of the Greeks, lies in the middle of the northern Jauf, and north of the other two. The three Minaean citadels lie nearly in this position (. ·.), with old Sabaean settlements (Raiam) all round them, and even with some Sabaean places (e.g., Nask and Kamná) within the triangle they form. The dialect of the Minaeans is sharply distinguished from the Sabaeans (see above). The inscriptions have yielded the names of twenty-seven Minaean kings, who were quite independent, and, as it would seem, not always friends of the Sabaeans, for neither dynasty mentions the other on its inscriptions, while minor kings and kingdoms are freely mentioned by both, presumably when they stood under the protection of the one or the other respectively. The Minaeans were evidently active rivals of the Sabaean influence, and a war between the two is once mentioned. In Hadramaut they disputed the hegemony with one another, the government there being at one time under a Minaean, at another under a Sabaean prince, while the language shows now the one and now the other influence. The religions also of the two powers present many points of agreement, with some notable differences. Thus, puzzling as the fact appears, it is clear that the Minaeans formed a sort of political and linguistic island in the Sabaean country. The origin of the Minaeans from Hadramaut is rendered probable by the predominance of their dialect in the inscriptions of that country (except in that of Hisn Ghoráb), by the rule, already mentioned, of a Minaean prince in Hadramaut, and by Pliny’s statement (H. N ., xii. 63) that frankincense was collected at Sabota (the capital of Hadramaut; inscr. שבות), but exported only through the Gebanites, whose kings received custom dues on it, compared with xii. 69, where he speaks of Minaean myrrh “in qua et Atramitica est et Gebbanitica et Ausaritis Gebbanitarum regno,” &c., implying that Minaean myrrh was really a Hadramite and Gebanite product. All this suggests a close connexion between the Minaeans and Hadramaut; and from the Minaean inscriptions we know that the Gebanites were at one time a Minaean race, and stood in high favour with the queen of Ma'ín. Thus we are led to conclude that the Minaeans were a Hadramite settlement in the Jauf, whose object was to secure the northern trade road for their products. We cannot but see that their fortified posts in the north of the Sabaean kingdom had a strategical purpose; and so Pliny (xii. 54) says, “Attingunt et Minaei, pagus alius, per quos evehitur uno tramite angusto [from Hadramaut]. Hi primi commercium turis fecere maximeque exercent, a quibus et Minaeum dictum est.” Besides this road, they had the sea-route, for, according to Pliny, their allies, the Gebanites, held the port of Ocelis. If the Minaeans were later immigrants from Hadramaut, we can understand how they are not mentioned in Gen. x. In later times, as is proved by the Minaean colony in Al-'Olá, which Euting has revealed to us, they superseded the Sabaeans in some parts of the north. In the 'Olá inscriptions we read the names of Minaean kings and gods. Notable also is the mention in 1 Chron. iv. 41 of the “Bedouin encampments אהל׳ם ) and the Ma'íním” smitten by the Simeonites, which may possibly refer to the destruction of a Minaean caravan protected by these Bedouins. The LXX. at least renders Ma'íním by Mιvαίυsj. It seems bold to conjecture that the Minaeans were in accord with the Romans under Aelius Gallus, yet it is noteworthy that no Minaean town is named among the cities which that general [9:24:741] destroyed, though ruin fell on Nask and Kamna, which lie inside the Minaean territory.
The inscriptions seem to indicate that the monarchies of South Arabia were hereditary, the son generally following the father, though not seldom the brother of the deceased came between, apparently on the principle of seniority, whieh we find also in North Arabia. Eratosthenes (in Strabo xvi. 4, 3) says that the first child born to one of the magnates after a king came to the throne was his designated successor; the wives of the magnates who were pregnant at the king’s accession were carefully watched and the first child born was brought up as heir to the kingdom. There seems to be a mistake in the first part of this statement; what Eratosthenes will have said is that the oldest prince after the king was the designated successor. This law of succession explains how we repeatedly find two kings named together among the Sabaeans, and almost always find two among the Minaeans; the second king is the heir. The principle of seniority, as we know from North-Arabian history, gives rise to intrigues and palace revolutions, and was probably often violated in favour of the direct heir. On the other hand, it readily leads to a limited power of election by the magnates, and in fact good Arabian sources speak of seven electoral princes. Some inscriptions name, besides the king, an eponymus, whose office seems to have been priestly, his titles being dhú haríf, eponymus, and rashúw, “ sacrificer.” All royal inscriptions are signed by him at the beginning and the end, and he appears with the king on coins.
Religion.— In spite of the many ruins of temples and inscriptions, the religion of the Sabaeans is obscure. Most of the many names of gods are mere names that appear and vanish again in particular districts and temples. Of the great national gods of the Sabaeans and Minaeans we know a little more. The worship of the heavenly bodies, for whieh there is Arabic evidence, had really a great place in Yemen. Sun-worship seems to have been peculiar to the Sabaeans and Hamdanites; and, if the Sabis of Sabota (Pliny) was in fact the sun deity Shams, this must be ascribed to Sabaean influence. The Sabaean Shams was a goddess, while the chief divinity of the Minaeans was the god 'Athtar, a male figure, worshipped under several forms, of which the commonest are the Eastern 'Athtar and 'Athtar Dhú Kabd. Wadd and Nikrah, the gods of love and hate, are possibly only other forms of the two ‘Athtars. The Sabaeans also recognize 'Athtar; but with them he is superseded by Almakah, who, according to Hamdání, is the planet Venus, and therefore is identical with 'Athtar. The moon-god Sin appears on an inscription of Shabwat; but, according to Hamdání, Haubas, “the drier,” was the Sabaean moon-god. On the Shabwat inscription 'Athtar is the father of Sin, and it is noteworthy that these two deities also appear as nearly related in the Babylonian legend of 'Ishtar’s descent to Hades, where 'Ishtar is conversely the daughter of the god Sin. The mother of 'Athtar on another inscription is probably the sun. We find also the common Semitic Il (El) and a Dhú Samai answering to the northern Ba'al Shamayim. Three gods of the inscriptions are named in the Koran,—Wadd, Yaghúth, and Nasr. In the god-name Ta’lab there may be an indication of tree-worship. The many minor deities may be passed over; but we must mention the sanctuary of Riyám, with its images of the sun and moon, and, according to tradition, an oracle. In conformity with old Semitic usage, pilgrimages were made at definite seasons to certain deities, and the Sabaean pilgrim month, Dhú Hijjatán, is the northern Dhú’l-Hijja. The outlines, and little more, of a few of the many temples can still be traced. Noteworthy are the elliptic form of the chief temples in Ma’rib and Sirwáh, and the castle of Nakab-al-Hajar with its entrances north and south.
Sacrifices and incense were offered to the gods. The names for altar (midhbah) and sacrifice (dhibh) are common Semitic words, and the altar of incense has among other names that of miktar, as in Hebrew. A variety of spices—the wealth of the land—are named on these altars, as rand, ladanum, costus, tarum, &c. Frankincense appears as lubán, and there are other names not yet understood. The gods received tithes of the produce of trade and of the field, in kind or in ingots and golden statues, and these tributes, with freewill offerings, erected and maintained the temples. Temples and fortifications were often combined. The golden statues were votive offerings; thus a man and his wife offer four statues for the health of their four children and a man offers to Dhú Samai statues of a man and two camels, in prayer for his own health and the protection of his camels from disease of the joints.
Their commerce brought the Sabaeans under Christian and Jewish influence; and, though the old gods were too closely connected with their life and trade to be readily abandoned, the great change in the trading policy, already spoken of, seems to have affected religion as well as the state. The inland gods lost importance with the failure of the overland trade, and Judaism and Christianity seem for a time to have contended for the mastery in South Arabia. Jewish influence appears in the name Rahmán (see above), while efforts at Christianization seem to have gone forth from several places at various times. According to Philostorgius, the Homerites were converted under Constantius II. by the Indian Theophilus, who built churches in Zafar and Aden. Another account places their conversion in the reign of Anastasius (491-518). In Nejrán Syrian missionaries seem to have introduced Christianity (Nöldeke). But, as the religion of the hostile Ethiopians, Christianity found political obstacles to its adoption in Yemen; and, as heathenism had quite lost its power, it is intelligible that Dhú Nuwás, who was at war with Ethiopia before the last fatal struggle, became a Jew. His expedition against Christian Nejrán had therefore political as well as religious motives. The Ethiopian conquest rather hurt than helped Christianity. The famous kalis (έκκλησία) of Abraha in San'á seems to have been looked on as a sign of foreign dominion, and Islam found it easy to supersede Christianity in Yemen.
Coins.— In older times and in many districts coins were not used, and trade was carried on mainly by barter. Nor have there yet been many great finds of coins; indeed most of the pieces in European collections probably come from the same hoard. At the same time the coins throw a general light on the relations of ancient Yemen. The oldest known pieces are imitations of the Athenian mintage of the 4th century b.c., with the legend AΘE and the owl standing on an overturned amphora. The reverse has the head of Pallas with a Sabaean N. Of younger coins the first series has a king’s head on the reverse, and the old obverse is enriched with two Sabaean monograms, which have been interpreted as meaning “majesty” and “eponymus” respectively. In a second series the Greek legend has disappeared, and, instead of the two Sabaean monograms, we have the names of the king and the eponymus. A third series shows Roman influence and must be later than the expedition of Gallus. As the standard of the coins of Attic type is not Attic but Babylonian, we must not think of direct Athenian influence. The type must have been introduced either from Persia or from Phoenicia (Gaza). One remarkable tetradrachm with the Sabaean legend Abyath’á is imitated from an Alexander of the 2d century b.o., the execution being quite artistic and the weight Attic. There are also coins struck at Raydán and Harib, which must be assigned to the Himyarite period (1st and 2d century a.d.). The inscriptions speak of “bright Hayyilí coins in high relief,” but of these none have been found. They also speak of sela' pieces. The sela' in late Hebrew answers to the older shekel and the mention of it seems to point to Jewish or Christian influence.
Literature.— Fresnel, Pièces rel. aux Inscrr. Himyarites déc. par Μ. Arnaud, 1845; inscriptions in the Himyaritic Character in the British Museum, London, 1863; Praetorius, Beitr. zur Erklärung der himjar. Inschr., 3 parts, Halle, 1872- 74; Kremer, Südarabische Sage, 1866; Sprenger, Alte Geogr. Arabiens, 1873; D. H. Müller, Südarabische Studien, vienna, 1877; Id., Die Burgen u. Schlösser Südarabiens, 2 parts, vienna, 1879-81 (especially for chronology and antiquities); Mordtmann and Müller, Sabäische Denkmäler, Vienna, 1883; Derenbourg, Études sur l'Épigraphie du Yemen, Paris, 1884; Id., Nouv. Ètud., 1885; Glaser, Mittheilungen über . . . sab. Inschr., 1886; Hamdání, Geogr. d. Arab. Halbinsel, ed. D. H. Muller, vol. i., Leyden, 1884. See also papers by Osiander, Z.D.M.G., xix.-xx. (1864-65); Halévy, Journ. As., 1872-74; D. H. Müller, Z.D.M.G., xxix.· xxxi., xxxvii.; Prideaux, Tr. Soc. Bibl. Arch., 1873; Derenbourg, Bab. and Or. Becord, London, 1887. In the press, D. H. Miiller, Epigraphische Denkmäler nach . . . Copien Eutings. Further cp. the travels of Niebuhr, Seetzen, Wellsted, Wrede, Maltzan, Halévy, Manzoni, and Glaser. (D. H. Μ.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074101-0786m | YENISEI. See Siberia and Yeniseisk. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 741 [9:24:741] | |
kp-eb0924-074102-0786m | YENISEISK, a province of Eastern Siberia, which extends from the Chinese frontier to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, with an area of 992,870 square miles—as large as one-half of European Russia—has Tobolsk and Tomsk on the W., Yakutsk and Irkutsk on the E., northwestern Mongolia on the S., and the Arctic Ocean on the N. (see vol. xxii. pl. L). Its southern extremity being in 51° 45' N. lat. and its northern (Cape Tcheluskin) in 77° 38', it combines a great variety of orographical types, from the Sayan alpine regions in the south to the tundras of the Arctic littoral.
The border-ridge of the high plateau of north-western Mongolia, which is known under the general name of the Western Sayans, and reaches altitudes of from 7000 to 8000 feet, limits it in the south. This is girdled on the north-western slope by a zone, nearly 100 miles wide, of alpine tracts, characterized by narrow valleys separated by several parallel chains of mountains, which are built up of crystalline slates, from 6000 to 7000 feet high. Here in the impenetrable forests only a few Tungus families find a precarious living by hunting. Towards the south, in the basins of the tributaries of the Tuba, the Sisim, and the Yus, and in those of the Kan, the Aguł, and the Biryusa, the valleys of the alpine tracts contain rich auriferous deposits, and numerous gold-washings have been established along the taiga. In 53° 10' N. lat. the Yenisei emerges from the mountain tracts into the wide steppes of Abakan and Minusinsk, from 1500 to 2000 feet above sea-level, which extend along the base of the mountain region north-eastwards[9:24:742] towards the upper Lena. A flattened ridge of mountains, hardly attaining more than 3000 to 3500 feet, shoots north-east from the Kuznetskiy Alatau (see Tomsk) and separates the dry steppes of Minusinsk and Abakan from the next terrace of plains, from 1200 to 1700 feet in height, which also stretches in a north-eastern direction from Barnaul in the Altai to Krasnoyarsk, and into the upper basin of the Vilui. Another system of mountains, known under the general name of the Yeniseisk Taiga, rises on the outer border of this terrace, in the space between the Upper Tunguska, or Angara, and the Podkamennaya Tunguska. This system consists of several parallel chains running south-west to north-east, from 2500 to 3500 feet in altitude, though they are much lower on the left bank of the Yenisei, and passing on north-eastwards into the basin of the Olenek. For many years past the Yeniseisk Taiga has been one of the richest auriferous regions of Siberia, not so much on account of the percentage of gold in its alluvial deposits (which are poor in comparison with those of Olekminsk) as on account of the facilities for supplying the gold-fields with articles of food produced in the steppes of Minusinsk.
Beyond the Yeniseisk Taiga begin the lowlands, which at no point rise more than a few hundred feet above the sea and which slope gently towards the Arctic Ocean. They are covered with lakes, thin forests, and marshes; and, as they approach the ocean, they assume more and more the characters of barren tundra, devoid of tree vegetation and covered with lichens. Beyond 70° N. lat. trees occur only along the courses of the rivers. Two ranges, however, break the monotony of the lowlands,—the Tungusskiy ridge, which stretches north-east between the Khatanga and Anabara rivers, and the Byrranga Mountains, which run along the north-western shore of the Taimyr peninsula.
The shores of the Arctic Ocean are indented by deep estuaries, that of the Taz penetrating 600 miles into the interior of the continent, and that of the Yenisei 300 miles. Gyda Bay, between the estuaries of the Ob and the Yenisei, and Taimyr, Thaddeus, and Khatanga Bays, are wide and deep indentations, ice-bound almost all the year round. Taimyr peninsula, which protrudes as a massive block of land between the Yenisei and the Khatanga, is an utterly barren stony tundra.
In the south are the granites and granitic syenites of the border-ridge of the plateau. In the alpine region all varieties of crystalline slates—gneisses, diorite slates, talc and mica-schists, and clay slates—are found, the latter being auriferous, and the whole intersected with dykes and veins of protogene, diorites, porphyry, marble, and quartz. The same crystalline rocks are met with in the Kuznetskiy Ałatau, the Yeniseisk Taiga, and the Byrranga Mountains. The plains are built up of Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Triassic limestones and sandstones, with extensive freshwater deposits of the Jurassic period. Chalk and Eocene deposits are met with farther north. The mountain region bears traces of extensive glaciation, and the lowlands of having been covered during the post-Glacial period with immense lakes and marshy tundras, where thousands of mammoths and rhinoceroses were buried, along with other (now fossil) representatives of extinct Tertiary and post-Tertiary mammals. All the country gives evidence of having been covered with numberless lakes during the Lacustrine period.
Yeniseisk is exceedingly rich in all kinds of metals and minerals. Gold dust appears in three different regions,—the northern Yeniseisk Taiga, where 100,740 oz. of gold were extracted in 1884; the region of the Kuznetskiy Ałatau and its spurs, with the basins of the Tuba, Sisim, and Black and White Yus (25,860 oz. in 1884); and the upper parts of the tributaries of the Kan and Aguł (12,540 oz.), where the gold-washings merge into those of the Nijne-Udinsk district of Irkutsk. Silver ore is found at several places in the basin of the Abakan, but the mines have been abandoned. Iron ore occurs almost everywhere in south Yeniseisk, but there is only one ironwork on the Abakan (25,000 cwts. in 1884). Salt lakes are very common, and about 50,000 cwts. of salt are extracted every year.
The whole of Yeniseisk is watered by the Yenisei and its affluents. The Yenisei rises in north-western Mongolia in several branches (Bei-khem, Ulu-khem, &c.), the chief of which, the Ulu-khem, has its source in marshes to the west of Lake Kossogol at a height of more than 5000 feet. As far as the Russian frontier its course crosses the plateau at an altitude of not less than 3000 feet; on entering Yeniseisk it pierces the great border-ridge and the series of parallel chains of the alpine region. At Sayansk (53° 10' N. lat.) it emerges from the highlands and traverses the elevated steppes, receiving the Abakan on the left and the Tuba on the right. In 55° N. lat. it suddenly turns to the north-east, skirting the base of a low range of hills, on the northern slope of which flows the Tchulym, a tributary of the Ob, separated from the Yenisei by an isthmus only 6 miles in width. The possibility of connecting at this point the two great river-systems of Siberia has often been discussed; the difficulty is that the Tchulym valley is 440 feet higher than the other. A little below Krasnoyarsk the Yenisei is joined by a great tributary, the Kan, and farther north by the Angara or Upper Tunguska, which brings the waters of Lake Baikal^[1. According to recent measurements, the Angara, where it issues from Lake Baikal, has a volume of 121,400 cubic feet per second ( Izvestia, East Siberian Geogr. Soc., xvii., 1886). ] and is navigable from Irkutsk, notwithstanding a series of rapids in its middle course. The right-hand tributaries of the Ob,—the Ket, the Tym, and the Vakh,—approach the Yenisei so closely, and their sources are so thoroughly inosculated with those of the left-hand tributaries of the Yenisei, that the question of connecting the two systems by means of a canal has been more than once raised; indeed something has been done to connect the Great Kas, a tributary of the Yenisei, with the Ket,—a boat with some 150 cwts. of cargo having already passed from the one to the other.^[2. According to Baron Aminoff’s measurements, Lake Bolshoye, through which the canal would have to pass, is 66 feet above the Ket at its junction with the Ozernaya, and 181 feet above the Yenisei at its junction with the Kas. ] A railway across the narrow isthmus between the Tchulym and the Yenisei is now regarded as the best solution of the question. In 61° N. lat. the Yenisei, already more than two miles broad, divides into several branches, which wind amidst many islands, and has several dangerous rapids. Then, before piercing a ridge of hills, it expands into a kind of lake, 10 miles across, just above its junction with the Podkamennaya Tunguska. Almost exactly at the Arctic Circle, opposite Turukhansk, it receives from the right another large tributary, the Lower Tunguska, which rises within a short distance of the upper Lena. The Yenisei, thus augmented, becomes more than 6 miles wide in lat. 68°. Its estuary begins at the village of Dudino, and has a breadth of 40 miles; it contains numberless islands. The great river narrows once more (12 miles) before entering the Arctic Ocean (Yenisei Bay), after a total course of more than 3000 miles. It is navigable on its middle and lower courses, steamers plying between Krasnoyarsk and Minusinsk, as also on the lower Yenisei. Its mouth has been visited almost every year of late by steamers from Norway or Great Britain; and it is expected that regular communication will be established between Dudino and European ports.
The climate, though very severe throughout, offers, as might be expected, great varieties. The Minusinsk steppes have a dry and relatively mild climate, so that they are sometimes called the Italy of Siberia. At Krasnoyarsk (55° 1' N. lat.) the climate is more severe, and the winds are exceedingly disagreeable. The yearly fall of snow is so small that the winds blow it away in the neighbourhood of the town; hence a circuit has to be made by the convoys of sledges to avoid it, or the sledges changed for wheeled carriages. Yeniseisk (58° 27' N. lat.) has an average temperature below freezing-point, and at Turukhansk the coldest month (February) has an average temperature of - 24° Fahr. On the Taimyr peninsula the average summer temperature hardly reaches 45°. For additional particulars, see Siberia, vol. xxii. p. 6.
The highlands of Sayan and Alatau are thickly clothed with forests of cedar, pitch-pine, larch, elder, and birch, with a rich undergrowth of rhododendrons, Berberis, and Ribes ; the Scotch fir appears only in the lower and drier parts of the valleys. The summits and slopes of the mountains are strewn with débris and boulders, and thickly sheeted with lichens and mosses; but there are also patches of meadow land covered with flowers, most of which are known in Europe. Still, the flora is poor as a rule, and Dr Martianoff, after several years’ collecting, succeeded in gathering only 104 species of phanerogams.^[3. N. Martianoff, “Materials for a Flora of the Minusinsk Region,” in Trudy of the Kasan Society of Naturalists, xi. 3, 1882. ] On the other hand, the flora of the Minusinsk plains and of the steppes of the Abakan at once strikes the traveller by the variety and brilliancy of its forms. The meadows are covered with bright flowers scattered amid the common Gramineae, and in June and July they are adorned and perfumed by the Polygala, Dianthus, Medicago, Lathyrus, yellow sweet-scented lily, and scores of other flowers, mostly familiar in Europe, but attaining in Yeniseisk a larger size and greater brilliancy of colour. The rich carpet of grass and flowers is overtopped by the tall white blossoms of Archangelica and Spiraea Ulmaria, and [9:24:743] the blue masses of the tall Veronica longifolia. The meadows of the moister localities, surrounded by thickets of willow, poplar, wild cherry, and hawthorn, are still more attractive, on account of their wealth in anemones, violets, gentians, and so on, and the numerous creepers which festoon the trees and shrubs. Μ. Mar-tianoff's lists enumerate a total of 760 flowering and 760 cryptogamic plants. Of the lower Fungi and parasitical Myxomycetes 1300 species were noted, and out of the 823 species hitherto described by specialists no less than 124 have proved to be new. Farther northward the flora of Yeniseisk is similar in character to that of the Siberian lowlands (see Siberia, vol. xxii. p. 7). In the Taimyr peninsula it is represented by only 124 species of flowering plants.
For the fauna of Yeniseisk, see Siberia, vol. xxii. p. 7.
The steppes of the upper Yenisei have been inhabited from a very remote antiquity, and numberless kurgans, graves, rock inscriptions, and smelting furnaces of the successive inhabitants are scattered all over the prairies of Abakan and Minusinsk.^[4. Besides the works of Radloff, and those mentioned in the bibliography of Semenoff’s Dictionary, see N. Savenkoff’s paper on recent explorations, in Izvestia of East Siberian Geogr. Soc., xvii., 1887, and the Descriptive Catalogue of the Minusinsk Museum, by D. Klementz. ] The present population exhibits traces of all these predecessors (see Siberia and Tartars). Numerous survivals of Turkish and Samoyedic stems are found in the steppe land and in the Sayans; but some of them are greatly reduced in numbers (only a few hundreds). The Kaibals, the Katcha Tartars, the Sagais, the Kyzyl and Milet Tartars, and the Kamasins have settlements of their own, and maintain their national features; but the Karagasses, the Kotts, and the Arintses have almost entirely disappeared, and are represented only by a few families in the spurs of the Sayans.^[5. Radloff’s Aus Sibirien (2 vols., Leipsic, 1880) contains full accounts of the various Turkish stems of Yeniseisk. ] The Tunguses are scattered in the least accessible tracts, and may number about 2000, or less. Several hundreds of Yakuts inhabit the Turukhansk district; and in the tundras between the Taz and the Yenisei there are a few hundred Ostiaks (q.v. ) and Yuraks of the Samoyedic stem. The remainder of the population, which numbered in all 447,076 in 1885, consists of Russians,—partly exiles, but mostly voluntary settlers. Nearly 50,000 belong to the unfortunate category of “settled” exiles. The “indigenes”— Tartars, Tunguses, Ostiaks, &c.—number about 50,000.
The chief occupation of the Russians is agriculture, which prospers in Minusinsk, the granary of the province; it is also carried on in west Kansk, Krasnoyarsk, and Atchinsk, and in a few villages of the Yeniseisk district, the total area of land under com being reckoned at nearly 2,500,000 acres. Wheat, summer and winter rye, oats, barley, and buckwheat are the chief crops. Gardening is carried on in Minusinsk. Cattle-breeding is important, especially in Minusinsk. It has been estimated that there are in Yeniseisk about 270,000 horses, 240,000 cattle, 300,000 sheep, and 30,000 reindeer in Turukhansk. These figures, however, must be below the true ones. The cattle being kept throughout the winter in the steppes, the snow-storms of early spring prove disastrous, as also do the murrains, to which no fewer than 200,000 head succumbed in the Minusinsk district in 1881. Hunting and fishing are an important resource for most of the indigenes and for many of the Russians.
The manufactures of Yeniseisk are hardly worth mentioning, all capital being engaged in gold-washing or in commerce. The chief trade is in furs (exported), and in groceries and manufactured goods (imported). The gold-fields of the Yeniseisk Taiga are supplied with grain and cattle by river from the Minusinsk region, and with salt, spirits, and iron by the Angara. Attempts have recently been made to stimulate the trade in tea with north-west Mongolia.
Yeniseisk is divided into five districts, the chief towns of which are Krasnoyarsk (q.v.), the capital, which had 17,155 inhabitants in 1884; Atchinsk (7190) and Kansk (4050), two small towns on the great Siberian highway, of which the latter is an entrepôt for the gold-mines; Minusinsk (8270) on the Tuba, close by its junction with the Yenisei, which has now a small but excellent natural history and ethnographical museum; and Yeniseisk (7050), the chief entrepôt for the gold-mines, having a public library and a natural history museum, created of late by exiles. Turukhansk (139) is the chief town of a vast “region” (krai). (P. A. K.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074301-0788m | YEOLA, a municipal town of India, in the Násik district, Bombay presidency, with a population (1881) of 17,685 (males 8975, females 8710). It is situated in 20° 4' 10” N. lat. and 74° 30' 30" E. long., 44 miles east of Násik town, 13 miles south of Manwar station on the north-east line of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, and nearly 12 miles from the frontier of the Nizam’s dominions. Yeola is a flourishing commercial town, trading in silk and cotton goods, which it weaves, and in gold-twist, which it also manufactures.
At the time of its foundation Yeola was under the emperor of
Delhi; it subsequently passed into the hands of the rajas of Satara and then the peshwas. Finally it was given in grant to Vithal, the ancestor of the present chief of Vinchur, who still enjoys the revenue from the lands attached to the town, though he has no authority within it. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074302-0788m | YEOMANRY CAVALRY. See Volunteers. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074303-0788m | YEOVIL, a market town and municipal borough of Somerset, England, is situated on the river Yeo or Ivel, which here separates Somerset from Dorset, and on branch lines of the London and South Western and the Great Western Railways, 40 miles south of Bristol and 124 westsouth-west of London. The streets are regular and spacious, with a number of handsome public buildings. A few of the houses are of considerable antiquity, but within recent years the town has undergone much alteration. The church of St John the Baptist, occupying a commanding site in the centre of the town, is a large and beautiful cruciform structure in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave of seven bays, aisles, transepts, and lofty western tower. It is described by Mr Freeman as “a grand and harmonious whole, as truly the work of real artistic genius as Cologne or Winchester.” There are two ecclesiastical parishes within the borough, Hendford and Yeovil Marsh. The principal secular public buildings are the town-hall in the Grecian style, erected in 1849, and the corn exchange. There are a reading room and a library in connexion with the young men’s Christian association and mutual improvement society. The benevolent institutions include Woborne’s almshouses for six men and six women, the portreeves’ almshouses, and a few smaller charities. Water is obtained from Holywell, 8 miles distant, by works constructed by the corporation. Formerly the woollen manufacture was of some consequence, but this industry has now died out. The staple industry is the manufacture of gloves, for which the town has long been celebrated. Brewing and brick-making are also carried on. The agricultural trade of Yeovil is of some importance, large corn markets and cattle and horse fairs being held. The corporation consists of a mayor, four aldermen, and twelve councillors, who hold the manorial rights and also form the urban sanitary authority. The town has a commission of the peace, and petty sessions are held both by the county and the borough magistrates. The population of the municipal borough and urban sanitary district (area about 700 acres) in 1871 was 8527, and in 1881 it was 8479.
Yeovil was a borough by prescription. Anciently it was called the town, borough, lordship, and hundred of Yeovil, and was included in a district which soon after the Conquest was taken possession of by the crown. The manor of Yeovil included in this district was some time afterwards assigned to the rector of St John the Baptist church, and was incorporated under the name of the portreeve and burgesses of Yeovil. In 1418 it was resigned by the rector to Henry V., who gave the manor to the convent of the Virgin Mary and Saint Bridget. The grant was confirmed by Edward IV. After the dissolution of the monasteries the manor was settled by Henry VIII. on Catherine Parr, who held it till her death. In 1449 the town was visited by a fire, by which 117 houses were destroyed. In 1853 Yeovil was placed under the Municipal Act. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074304-0788m | YEW. This tree (Taxus) belongs to a genus of Coniferae in which the ordinarily woody cone is represented by a fleshy cup surrounding a single seed. Usually it forms a low-growing tree of very diverse habit, but generally with dense spreading branches, thickly covered with very dark green linear leaves, which are given off' from all sides of the branch, but which, owing to a twist in the base of the leaf, become arranged in a single series on each side of it. The trees are usually dioecious: the male flowers are borne on one individual and the female on another, although instances occur in which flowers of both sexes are formed on the same tree. The male flowers are more or less globular and occur in the axils of the leaves. They consist of a number of overlapping brownish scales, gradually increasing [9:24:744] in size from below upwards and surrounding a naked stalk that bears at its summit a head of anthers. Each anther has a flat five-lobed top, something like a shield; from its under surface five, six, or more pollen cases hang down, and these open lengthwise to liberate the globose pollen-grains. Each flower thus consists of a number of monadelphous stamens; but, according to the older view of its structure, each stamen constitutes of itself a single flower, the whole mass being considered as an amentaceous inflorescence or catkin of numerous monandrous flowers. The female flowers are also placed each separately in the axil of a leaf, and consist of a number of overlapping scales, as in the male. These scales surround a cup which is at first shallow, green, and thin, but which subsequently becomes fleshy and red, while it increases so much in length as almost entirely to conceal the single straight seed. It is clear that the structure of the female flower differs from that of most conifers; but the structure of the wood and other characters forbid its being separated from them except as a subdivision (Taxaceae).
The poisonous properties, referred to by classical writers such as Caesar, Virgil, and Livy, reside chiefly if not entirely in the foliage. This, if eaten by horses or cattle, especially when it has been cut and thrown in heaps so as to undergo a process of fermentation, is very injurious. The leaves have also been used for various medicinal purposes, but are seldom employed now. The succulent portion of the yew berry is quite harmless; but it is probable that some noxious principle is contained in the seed. As, however, it is hard and disagreeable to the taste, the danger from this source is not great. As a timber tree it is used for cabinet-work, axle-trees, bows, and the like, where strength and durability are required.
The yew occurs wild over a very large area of the northern hemisphere. In north-eastern America and in Japan trees are found of a character so similar that by some botanists they are all ranged under one species. The varieties grown in the United Kingdom are very numerous, one of the most striking being that known as the Irish yew,—a shrub with the pyramidal or columnar habit of a cypress, in which the leaves spread from all sides of the branches, not being twisted, as they usually are, out of their original position. In the ordinary yew the main branches spread more or less horizontally, and the leaves are so arranged as to be conveniently exposed to the influence of the light; but in the variety in question the branches are mostly vertical, and the leaves assume a direction in accordance with the ascending direction of the branches.
The yew is a favourite evergreen tree, either for planting separately or for hedges, for which its dense foliage renders it well suited. The wood is very hard, close-grained, and of a deep red brown colour internally. Its younger branches, owing to their toughness, were formerly used for bows. The planting of the yew in churchyards was at one time supposed to have been done with a view to the supply of yew staves. But, while importation from abroad was fostered, there seems to have been no statute enforcing the cultivation of the yew in Great Britain; on the other hand, a statute of Edward I. (cited in Gard. Chron., 6th March 1880) states that the trees were often planted in churchyards to defend the church from high winds. Be this as it may, yews of huge size and great antiquity still exist in various parts of the country in the vicinity of churches. Some of these are of historic interest; but it is hardly prudent to cite either the measurements or the allegations as to age, the circumstances under which the estimates were framed being different in each case. Accurate comparative measurements made on a uniform plan would be very serviceable. The Crowhurst yew, mentioned by Evelyn as 30 feet in circumference, was still in existence in 1876 (Gard. Chron., 22d July 1876). The large yew at Ankerwyke near Staines, with a trunk 27⅔ feet in circumference, might well have been in existence in 1215, when Magna Charta was signed. Considerable interest also attaches to the fine yew in Buckland churchyard near Dover, which in 1880 was removed to a distance of 60 yards. The trunk had been split so that it had a direction nearly parallel with the soil. This huge tree was moved with a ball of soil round its roots, 16 feet 5 inches by 15 feet 8 inches, by 3 feet 6½ inches in depth, the weight of the entire mass being estimated at 56 tons. The dimensions of the tree in 1880 were as follows—“circumference of the main trunk, 22 feet; of the upright portion of the trunk, 6 feet 10 inches; second horizontal trunk, 10 feet 10 inches; do., south limb forking off at 9 feet from the main trunk, 7 feet 10 inches; do., west limb forking off at 9 feet from the main trunk, 8 feet 8 inches; extent of branches from centre of main trunk southwards, 30 feet 10 inches, and from north to south 48 feet; they extend from the main trunk westward 33 feet.” The tree was replanted so that the horizontal portions were replaced in their original erect position and the natural symmetry restored Hard. Chron., 1st May 1880). | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074401-0789m | YEZD. See Yazd, p. 733 above. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074402-0789m | YEZO. See Japan. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074403-0789m | YOH-CHOW FU, a prefectural city in the Chinese province of Hoo-nan (“south of the lakes ”), stands on high ground on the east side of the outlet of Tung-ting Lake, in 29° 18' N. lat. and 113° 2' E. long. The district in which Yoh-chow Fu stands is the ancient habitat of the aboriginal San Miao tribes, who were subsequently deported into north-western China, and who, judging from some of the non-Chinese festival customs of the people, would appear to have left traditions behind them. The present city, which was built in 1371, is about 3 miles in circumference and is entered by four gates. The walls are high and well built, but were not strong enough to keep out the Taiping rebels in 1853. Situated between Tung-ting Lake and the Yang-tze-kiang, Yoh-chow Fu forms a depot for the native products of the province which are destined for export, and for foreign goods on their way inland. In 1885 foreign goods to the value of 28,228 taels were sent from Hankow to Yoh-chow Fu, the principal items being grey shirting, oil, and lead. The city is 4250 Chinese miles from Peking, and contains a population of about 60,000. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 744 [9:24:744] | 29 18' N 113 2' E |
kp-eb0924-074404-0789m | YOKOHAMA, situated in 35° 26' 53" N. lat. and 139’ 38' 39" E. long. (see map in vol. xxiii. p. 433), is the most important of the five ports in Japan open by treaty to foreign commerce and residence, both on account of its [9:24:745] proximity to Tokio, the capital, and of the extent of its trade. It stands on a plain, extending along the Bay of Tokio and shut in by hills, one of which, towards the south-east, terminates in a promontory called Honmoku-misaki. Its area extends over ∙873 of a square mile, of which ∙26 is occupied by the foreign settlement. The climate is variable, the range in temperature being from 95° to 43° Fahr., and the mean temperature 57°∙7. The cold in winter is severe owing to the prevalence of northerly winds, while the heat is great in summer, though it is tempered by sea breezes from the south-west. The rainfall is large—according to Dr Hepburn’s observations (1863-1869) 69¼ inches annually. In 1859, when the neighbouring town of Kanagawa was opened to foreigners under the treaty with the United States, Yokohama was an insignificant fishing village; and notwithstanding the protests of the foreign representatives the Japanese Government shortly afterwards chose the latter place as the settlement instead of Kanagawa. The town has since increased so rapidly that in 1886 the population was 111,179 (3904 foreigners, including 2573 Chinese, 256 Americans, and 625 British). The Japanese Government has constructed various public buildings, a granite breakwater, and a causeway 2 miles long, connecting the town with Kanagawa. Waterworks on the most improved principle have been completed recently, the water being supplied from the Sagamigawa. The foreign settlement consists of well-constructed streets with business establishments. The wealthier portion of the foreigners reside, however, on a hilly locality to the south of the town, called the Bluff. The land occupied by foreigners has been leased to them by the Japanese Government, 20 per cent. of the annual rent being set aside for municipal expenses.
The harbour, which is a part of the Bay of Tokio, is good and commodious, extending from Honmoku-misaki (Treaty Point) to the mouth of the Tsurumi, a distance of about 5 miles. The average depth at high water is about 46 feet, with a fall of tide of about 8 feet, the entrance being marked by a lightship and two buoys. There are two landing-places, the English and the French “hatoba ”; but, as there are no quays available for large vessels, goods have to be carried to the shore in junks. Steamers from San Francisco, Vancouver’s Island, China, &c., call regularly. A railway about 18 miles long connects Yokohama with Tokio. This, the first railway in Japan, was constructed in 1872. Yokohama is the terminus of the Tokaido line, which will ultimately connect Yokohama with Kioto, the former capital.
The following table shows the value of the foreign trade of Yokohama from 1878 to 1886 :—
[table]
The figures for the bullion trade in 1886 were—export (gold) £9291, (silver) £1,243,569; import (gold) £4776, (silver)£l,903,010. The revenue from custom duties, &c., in the same year was—export duties, £212,587; import duties, £198,866; warehouses, £1979; harbour dues, £1870. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074501-0790m | YOKOSUKA, a seaport and naval station of Japan, is situated in the province of Sagami and on the Bay of Tokio, 12 miles south of Yokohama (see map in vol. xxiii. p. 433). The port is sheltered by hills and affords good anchorage. The site was occupied by a small fishing village until 1865, when the shogun’s Government established a shipyard there. Since then it has grown rapidly and come into prominence. In 1868 the Japanese Government converted the shipyard into a naval dockyard, and subsequently carried out many improvements. In 1884 the port became a first-class naval station; and naval barracks, warehouses, offices, hospitals, &c., were established there. A large number of ships-of-war and of the mercantile marine are always found in the port, as well as an increasing number of foreign vessels, which come to be docked and repaired. The dockyard was first constructed by French engineers; but since 1875 the work has been entirely in the hands of Japanese engineers. The number of hands employed is about 2800. There are three dry docks and slips. The area occupied by the dockyard and other naval establishments is 7000 acres, and that of the town 270 acres. The population was 5800 in 1888. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074502-0790m | YONKERS, a city of Westchester county, New York, United States, is situated upon the east bank of the Hudson river, about 18 miles from its mouth, and on the New York Central and Hudson River and the New York City and Northern Railroads. The site is very hilly, consisting of ridges forming terraces parallel to the river. The city had in 1880 a population of 18,892 (12,733 in 1870). Yonkers has important manufacturing industries, principally of carpets, hats, silk, brass goods, elevators (lifts), steam engines, and machinery; but it is chiefly as a residence suburb, being within an hour of the business centre of the metropolis, that it has acquired its population and importance.
Yonkers was settled by the Dutch of New Amsterdam about the middle of the 17th century, and was held as a manor until 1779. In 1788 it was organized as a township, and in 1872 it received a city charter. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-074503-0790m | YONNE, a department of central France, was formed in 1790 partly from the province of Champagne proper (with its dependencies, Sénonais and Tonnerrois), partly from Burgundy proper (with its dependencies, the county of Auxerre and Avallonnais), and partly from Gâtinais (Orléanais and Île-de-France). It lies between 47° 18' and 48° 25' N. lat. and 2’ 50' and 4° 20' E. long., and is bounded by Aube on the N.E., Côte-d’Or on the E., Nièvre on the S., Loiret on the W., and Seine-et-Marne on the N.W. The highest elevation (2000 feet) of the department is in the granite mountains of Morvan, in the south-east, where other peaks range from 1300 to 1600 feet. These mountains are flanked by limestone plateaus, from 700 to 1200 feet in height, traversed by the Yonne and its tributaries. The department belongs wholly to the basin of the Seine, except a small district in the south-west, which belongs to that of the Loire. The river Yonne flows through it from south to north-north-west, receiving on the right bank the [9:24:746] Cure (with its tributary the Cousin), the Serein, the Ar-mançon (the valley of which is traversed by the Burgundy Canal and by the railway from Paris to Lyons through Burgundy), and the Vanne (from which Paris is partly supplied by an aqueduct). To the west of the Yonne lie the sources of the Loing, another tributary of the Seine, and of its affluents, the Ouanne and the Lunain. The Yonne is navigable throughout the department, and is connected with the Loire by the Canal of Nivernais, which in turn is connected with that of Briare joining the Seine and the Loire. The climate of Yonne resembles that of Paris; but the extremes of heat and cold are greater on the plateaus. The annual rainfall is 27 inches at Auxerre and 32 in the east of the department. The prevailing winds are from the south-west and west.
Of a total area of 1,835,475 acres 1,125,412 acres are arable, 426,757 are under wood, 91,309 under vines, 79,366 under grass, and 39,316 are returned as occupied by heaths, pasture-lands, and marshes. The live stock in 1880 included 41,295 horses, 1280 mules, 8438 asses, 126,636 cattle, 238,522 sheep of native and 58,416 of superior breed (wool-clip in 1880 566 tons), 30,561 pigs, and 6516 goats. There were also 21,411 beehives (61 tons of honey). Oxen are fattened and the well-known St Florentin cheeses made. The wines of Tonnerre and Auxerrois are the finest red wines of Lower Burgundy, and those of Chablis are the finest white. The principal crops in 1884 were—wine 22,486,420 gallons (average of ten preceding years 28,607,370 gallons), wheat 5,500,000 bushels, meslin 192,600, rye 680,625, barley 948,750, oats 4,677,750, buckwheat 35,200, potatoes 3,410,088, beetroot for fodder 25,060 tons, hops 79 tons, colza seed 206, hemp seed 138, hemp 99, linseed 40, flax 22, tobacco 33, hay 386,650, clover 34,245, lucerne 30,189, and sainfoin 6297 tons. The forests consist of oak, beech, elm, hornbeam, ash, and birch, and re-plantations are being made with different kinds of pine and with larch; chestnut trees are not uncommon. In 1880 700 tons of peat were extracted; and there are fine quarries of Oolitic limestone, and of cement, ochre, fossil phosphates, china clay, and chalk. The chief industrial establishments are tanneries, forges (11,863 tons of iron in 1882), papermills, saw-mills, and breweries; files and other articles of steel, boots and shoes, hosiery, and champagne are also manufactured. Cereals, wines, firewood, charcoal, ochre, and bark are exported; southern wines and building materials are among the imports. There are 286 miles of railway, 318 of national and 6755 of other roads, and 205 of waterway. The population was 357,029 in 1881, and 355,364 in 1886. About 217,000 are engaged in agricultural pursuits. The department constitutes the archiepiscopal diocese of Sens, has its court of appeal at Paris, its academy at Dijon, and belongs to the district of Orleans army corps. It is divided for administrative purposes into five arrondissements. Places of note are the chef-lieu Auxerre (16,754 inhabitants in 1886), the picturesque Avallon (5768), Joigny (6189), famous for its wines, and Tonnerre (4650), for its wines and building stones. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 745 [9:24:745] | 48 25' N 4 20' E |
kp-eb0924-074601-0791m | YORK, a northern county of England, is bounded E. by the North Sea, N. by Durham (the boundary line being formed by the Tees), S. by Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, and Chester, and W. by Lancaster and Westmorland. It is much the largest county in England, being more than double the size of Lincolnshire, which ranks next to it. The area is 3,882,851 acres, or nearly 6067 square miles, almost one-eighth of the surface of England. Of the total area 750,828 acres or about 1173 square miles are in the East Riding, 1,361,664 acres or about 2127½ square miles in the North Riding, and 1,768,380 acres or about 2763 square miles in the West Riding. The city of York, which forms an administrative division separate from the Ridings, embraces an area of 1979 acres or about 3 square miles.
The marked differences in the geological structure of Yorkshire are reflected in the great variety of its scenery. The stratification is for the most part regular, but owing to a great line of dislocation nearly coincident with the western boundary of the county the rocks dip towards the east, while the strike of the strata is from north to south. The bold and picturesque scenery of the western hills and dales is due to the effects of denudation among the harder rocks, which here come to the surface. A portion of the Pennine chain, stretching from Derbyshire to the Cheviots, runs north and south through Yorkshire, where it has an average breadth of about 30 miles. The strata here consist of (1) Silurian beds, occupying a small area in the north-west corner of the county; (2) the Carboniferous or Mountain Limestone, which has been subjected to great dislocations, the more important of which are known as the North and South Craven faults; (3) the Yoredale series, consisting of shales, flagstones, limestone, and thin seams of coal; and (4) the Millstone Grit, forming part of the hilly moorlands, and capping many of the loftier eminences. In the West Riding the Pennine range forms part of the elevated country of Craven and Dent, with Whernside (2384 feet), Ingleborough (2361), and Penyghent (2270). Towards the east it gradually declines into a series of moorland hills. Mickle Fell in the north-west corner of the county rises to a height of 2581 feet. The scenery in the western part of the North Riding is somewhat similar to that in Craven, except that the lower hills are of sharper outline owing to the perpendicular limestone scars. To the intermingling of the limestone with the softer rocks are due the numerous “forces” or waterfalls, which are one of the special features of the scenery of this district, the more remarkable being High Force in Teesdale and Aysgarth Force in Wensleydale. The action of water on the limestone rocks has given rise to extensive caverns, of which the best examples are those of Clapham and Ingleton in the West Riding, as well as to subterranean watercourses. At Brimham, Plumpton, and elsewhere there are curious fantastic masses of rock due to irregular weathering of the Millstone Grit. The Pennine region is bounded on the south-east by the Coal Measures, forming the northern portion of the Derbyshire, Nottingham, and Yorkshire coalfield, which in Yorkshire extends from Sheffield northwards to Leeds. To the east the Measures dip beneath the Permian beds, of which a narrow band crops up from Masham southwards. The Permian strata are overlain to the east by the Trias or New Red Sandstone, which is scarcely ever exposed, but having been partly worn away is covered with Glacial deposits of clay and gravel, forming the low-lying Vale of York, extending from the Tees south to Tadcaster and east beyond York to Market Weighton. Farther east the Triassic beds are overlain by Lias and Oolite. The Lias crops to the surface in a curve extending from Redcar to the Humber. In the Middle Lias there is a seam of valuable iron ore, the source of the prosperity of the Cleveland region. The moorlands extending from Scarborough and Whitby are formed of Liassic strata topped with beds of Lower Oolite, rising gradually to the north-east and attaining at Burton Head a height of 1489 feet, the greatest elevation of the Oolite formation in England. In the bottom bed there is a seam of ironstone, an immense nugget of which, in Rosedale, now nearly all removed, formed at one time a conspicuous cliff. In this district there are a number of picturesque eminences capped by Lower Oolites, and among the eastern slopes of the moorlands there are several charming and fertile valleys. Along the line of the Lower Oolites there is a series of low flat hills, which slope southwards under the clays of the Vale of Pickering. These clays are covered by the Chalk, forming the district of the Wolds, which again dips southwards below the clays and sands of Holderness.
The coast is not deeply indented at any part, the inlets scarcely deserving the name of bays. Except in the Holderness region, the shore as far north as Saltburn is bold and rocky, and presents a great variety of picturesque cliff scenery, while below the cliffs there are in many cases long stretches of beautiful sands.
Yorkshire is famed for the beauty of its river scenery, in which respect it is scarcely surpassed by Scotland. The great majority of the rivers issue from the higher western regions and flow eastwards. The Tees, which rises on the [9:24:747] south-east borders of Cumberland, forms throughout almost its entire length the boundary between Yorkshire and Durham. The Swale rises on the confines of Westmorland, and after a semicircular course by Richmond joins the Ure a few miles below Boroughbridge. This latter river flows in a similar direction some miles south of the Swale through the beautiful Wensleydale, and then past Jervaulx Abbey, Masham, and Ripon. After its junction with the Swale it takes the name of the Ouse, and on being joined by the Nidd passes by York and Selby, beyond which it receives the Aire and the Trent, and finally it falls into the Humber. The Wharfe flows south-eastwards from the Pennine range past Bolton Abbey, Otley, Wetherby, and Tadcaster to the Ouse near Cawood. The Aire rises in full stream from the foot of Malham Cove in Craven, and, flowing past Skipton, Keighley, and Leeds, receives the Calder at Castleford, and falls into the Ouse near Goole. The Ribble flows southwards through the district of Craven into Lancashire. The Don rises in the Penistone moors, and flowing northwards by Sheffield and Doncaster falls into the Ouse near Goole. The Hull flows southwards through the East Riding to the Humber at Hull.
The county is almost destitute of lakes, the only sheets of water of size sufficient to lay claim to that title being Semmer Water at the upper end of Wensleydale, Malham Tarn at the head of Airedale, and Hornsea Mere near the sea-coast at Hornsea.
One of the chief sources of the mineral wealth of Yorkshire is the coalfield in the West Riding, the most valuable seams being the Silkstone, which is bituminous and of the very highest reputation as a house coal, and the Barnsley thick coal, the great seam of the Yorkshire coalfield, which is of special value, on account of its semi-anthracitic quality, for use in iron-smelting and in engine furnaces. The average yearly production of the Yorkshire coalfield is nearly twenty million tons, the number of persons employed above and below ground at the coal-pits being over 60,000. Associated with the Upper Coal Measures there is a valuable iron ore, occurring in the form of nodules. Large quantities of fire-clay are also raised, as well as of gannister and oil-shale. In the Middle Lias of the Cleveland district there is a remarkable bed of iron ore, of which the annual production is over six million tons, the greater proportion of the ore being converted into pig-iron in Middlesbrough, by far the most important centre of pig-iron manufacture in the kingdom. Altogether the production of pig-iron in Yorkshire is nearly one-third of that produced in England, and nine-tenths of the produce of Yorkshire belongs to the Cleveland district. Lead ore is obtained in the Yoredale beds of the Pennine range in Wharfedale, Airedale, Niddesdale, Swaledale, Arkendale, and Wensleydale. Slates and flagstones are quarried in the Yoredale rocks. In the Millstone Grit there are several beds of good building stone, but that most largely quarried is the Magnesian Limestone of the Permian series, which, however, is of somewhat variable quality.
Yorkshire is noted for the number of its mineral springs, chiefly sulphureous and chalybeate, the principal, besides those at Harrogate, being Askern, Aldfield, Boston Spa, Croft, Filey, Guisbrough, Hovingham, and Scarborough.
Agriculture.— The hilly country in the west of Yorkshire, embracing the north-western corner of the North Riding and a great part of the West Riding, is chiefly pasture land, sheep being grazed on the higher grounds and cattle on the rich pastures where the limestone rock prevails. The Vale of York, with an area of about 1000 square miles, includes much fertile land occupied by all kinds of crops. The Chalk downs by careful cultivation now form one of the best soils for corn crops, the rotation being grasses, wheat, turnips, and barley. The till or boulder clay of Holderness is the richest soil in Yorkshire. A great part of the land in this district has been reclaimed from the sea, from 20,000 to 80,000 acres being protected by embankments. The Vale of Cleveland in the North Riding is well cultivated, the higher grounds in the district being chiefly pastoral. The smallest proportional area under cultivation is in the North Riding, 860,820 acres out of
1,361,664 in 1887, while in the East Riding there were 666,291 acres out of 804,798, and in the West Riding 1,210,639 acres out of 1,716,389. The proportion of permanent pasture is largest in the West Riding, 803,514 acres or about two-thirds of the area under cultivation, while in the North Riding it was 488,958 acres or rather more than one-half, and in the East Riding only 191,519 acres or considerably less than a third. On the other hand, the area under corn crops in the West Riding was 208,890 acres, in the North Riding 197,846 acres, and in the East Riding 254,162 acres. Wheat in 1887 occupied 66,341 acres in the East Riding, 38,437 in the North, and 58,659 in the West; barley 64,042 in the East, 61,367 in the North, and 54,592 in the West; and oats 101,410 in the East, 85,554 in the North, and 81,314 in the West. Rye, beans, and pease occupied comparatively small areas. Liquorice is grown in the neighbourhood of Pontefract. Flax is still grown, but occupies a comparatively small area, only 868 acres in 1887. Green crops in the East Riding occupied 110,806 acres (potatoes 12,956, turnips 75,590, mangold 5297, carrots 613, cabbage, &c., 7419, and vetches, &c., 8931), in the North Riding 78,689 (potatoes
11,246, turnips 58,121, mangold 2379, carrots 110, cabbage, &c., 3329, and vetches, &c., 3504), and in the West Riding 99,596 (potatoes 23,044, turnips 62,079, mangold 3331, carrots 250, cabbage, &c., 2219, and vetches, &c., 8673). Clover and rotation grasses occupied in the East, North, and West Ridings 92,982, 71,846, and 85,075 acres respectively, and fallow land 16,388, 23,460, and 13,141 acres respectively. The areas under orchards in 1887 were—in the East Riding 849 acres, in the North 1015, and in the West 1694, the areas under market gardens being 520, 369, and 2652 acres, under nursery grounds 104, 154, and 807 acres, and under woods (in 1881) 14,480, 49,106, and 66,014 acres respectively. Horses numbered 38,046 (23,508 used for agriculture, 14,538 unbroken horses and mares kept solely for breeding) in the East Riding, 40,384 (26,026 used for agriculture) in the North Riding, and 53,149 (35,180 used for agriculture) in the West Riding. These horses are only such as are returned by occupiers of land, and do not include the large number used for commercial purposes. The draught horses are generally of a somewhat mixed breed, but the county is famed for its breeds of hunters and of carriage and saddle horses. A breed known as Cleveland bays is much used in London carriages. Horse-racing is a favourite Yorkshire sport, the principal stables being at Malton, Beverley, Doncaster, and Middleham. Cattle in 1887 numbered 86,169 (26,211 cows and heifers) in the East Riding, 162,462 (54,111 cows and heifers) in the North Riding, 264,876 (122,457 cows and heifers) in the West Riding. The breeds of cattle are not much attended to, the custom in the hilly districts, in both the West and the North Riding, being to purchase lean cattle at the northern fairs to fatten for the Lancashire and Yorkshire butchers. The Teeswater breed is, however, on the increase in Yorkshire. In Holderness there is a short-horned breed, chiefly valuable for its milking qualities. Cheese-making is largely carried on in some districts. Sheep in 1887 numbered in the East Riding 429,252, in the North Riding 638,320, and in the West Riding 646,809. The Leicester, the Lincoln, and the South Down, and crosses between the Cheviot and Leicester, are perhaps the most common breeds. The old Wolds sheep have also been improved by crossing with Leicesters. The total number of pigs in the East Riding in 1887 was 46,332, in the North Riding 48,990, and in the West Riding 71,887. Though the large long-eared breed is still kept, the small breed is that chiefly in favour. Large numbers of pigs are kept at the dairy farms and fed mainly on whey. Yorkshire bacon is famed for its flavour.
According to the latest landowners’ Return, 1873, the East Riding was divided among 19,576 proprietors, possessing 710,733 acres at an annual value of £2,032,195, or about £2, 17s. 2d. per acre. There were 15,012 who owned less than one acre each, and there were 4049 acres of common lands. The following possessed over 10,000 acres each :—Sir Tatton Sykes 34,010 acres, Lord Londesborough 33,006, Sir G. Cholmley 20,503, Lord Wenlock 19,453, Lord Hotham 18,683, W. H. H. Broadley 14,208, William F. Bethel 13,396, Lord Leconfield 13,247, Lord Middleton 12,295, Crown Property 12,230, Viscountess Downe 11,595, and T. A. C. Constable 10,981. The North Riding was divided among 16,313 proprietors, possessing 1,278,884 acres at an annual value of £1,841,945, or about £1,8s. 9d. per acre. The following owned over 10,000 acres each :—John Bowes 48,887, Lord Feversham 39,312, marquis of Ailesbury 15,370, Lord Bolton 15,419, Viscount Downe 15,271, earl of Carlisle 13,030, Sir G. O. Wombwell 11,912, Lord Londesborough 11,884, Mrs D. Harcourt 11,442, Mrs J. T. D. Hutton 10,902. There were 10,115 proprietors who possessed less than one acre, and the area of common land was 247,409 acres. The West Riding was divided among 76,913 proprietors, possessing 1,632,259 acres at an annual value of £8,199,840, or about £5,0s. 5½d. per acre, the large rental being due to the increased rent of land in towns. There were 59,496 proprietors who owned less than one [9:24:748] acre each, and the estimated area of common land was 99,912 acres. The following proprietors owned over 10,000 acres each :—Charles Towneley 23,153, earl of Harewood 20,330, duke of Devonshire 19,333, Earl Fitzwilliam 19,165, Andrew Montagu 17,591, duke of Norfolk 15,270, George Lane Fox 15,018, earl of Dartmouth 14,723, Walter Morrison 14,118, Sir H. J. Tufton 12,202, T. W. S. Stanhope 11,357, Ayscough Fawkes 11,205, James Farrer 11,088, marquis of Ripon 10,908, Sir H. D. Ingilby 10,610, and duke of Leeds 10,034.
Communication.— The county, especially in the manufacturing districts, is intersected with railways in all directions, the principal companies being the North Eastern, the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln, the Lancashire and Yorkshire, the Midland, and the Great Northern. A considerable amount of traffic, especially in coal, is carried on by means of the canals.
Manufactures and Trade.— For many years an extensive district in the West Riding has been famed for its woollen and worsted manufactures. The early development of the industry was due partly to the abundance of water power supplied by the numerous streams in the valleys by which the district is indented; and in recent times the happy accident of the proximity of coal and iron has enabled the industry to keep pace with modern requirements. The West Riding is now the chief seat of the woollen manufacture in the United Kingdom, and has almost a monopoly in the manufacture of worsted cloths. In this industry nearly all the important towns in the Riding are engaged, Leeds having for its specialty almost every variety of woollen and worsted cloth, Bradford yarns and mixed worsted goods, Dewsbury, Batley, and the neighbouring districts shoddy, Huddersfield both plain goods and fancy trouserings and coatings, and Halifax, to the neighbourhood of which the cotton industry of Lancashire has also penetrated, worsted and carpets. Next to the woollen industry comes the manufacture of iron aud steel machinery and implements of every variety, Leeds being one of the principal seats of all kinds of mechanical engineering, and Sheffield of iron work and cutlery. For the minor manufactures in the district, and for more specific details, reference must be made to the separate articles on the different towns. Until comparatively recently agriculture was the chief calling of the North Riding; but the discovery of iron ore in the Cleveland region has led to the formation of another great manufacturing centre, mainly devoted to the production of pig-iron, the manufacturing of steel by the basic process, and iron shipbuilding. The industrial activity of the East Riding is mostly centred in Hull, the chief port of the county, although the Lancashire ports must be regarded as the principal ports for the trade, especially of the West Riding. In the North Riding Middlesbrough is rising into importance as a shipping port, and Whitby, though not progressing as a port, has a considerable coasting trade. The fishing industry, which is of minor importance, is carried on at Hull, Filey, Whitby, and Scarborough, and a considerable number of villages.
Scarborough is by far the most attractive and thriving watering-place north of the Thames; and a number of others, such as Whitby, Bridlington, Filey, and Saltburn, are rising yearly in repute. Among others, chiefly of local celebrity, are Redcar, Hornsea, and Withernsea. There are a considerable number of inland spas frequented to some extent by persons from other parts of the county, but the only one of wide reputation is Harrogate.
Administration and Population.— Yorkshire has from an early period been divided into three ridings, each of which has a lord lieutenant. The East Riding has a separate court of quarter sessions and a commission of the peace. The city of York within the municipal limits constitutes a separate division of the county. The municipal city and the ainsty are for parliamentary purposes included in the North Riding, for registration purposes in the East Riding, and for all other purposes in the West Riding. The parliamentary city of York, which formerly extended beyond the municipal limits, is partly in the North and partly in the East Riding. The following table gives the population of the county and of the three ridings in 1801, 1821, 1871, and 1881 :—
[table]
The population has more than quadrupled since 1801, the increase having been much the greatest in the West Riding. Though in area much the largest, Yorkshire is in population third among English counties, being exceeded in this respect both by Lancashire and Middlesex. The number of males in 1881 was 1,420,001 and of females 1,466,563. The number of persons to an acre in the county was 0∙74—East Riding 0∙42, North Riding (not including the city of York) 0∙25, and West Riding 1∙23. The East Riding comprises 6 wapentakes and the municipal boroughs of Beverley (pop. 11,425), Kingston-upon-Hull (154,240), and Hedon (966). It is divided into 12 petty and special sessional divisions. The borough of Kingston-upon-Hull has a separate court of quarter sessions and a commission of the peace, and the borough of Beverley has a commission of the peace. The riding contains 352 civil parishes with part of one other, viz., Filey, which extends into the North Riding. It is entirely in the diocese of York. The North Riding comprises 11 wapentakes, the liberties of East and West Langbaurgh and of Whitby Strand, and the municipal boroughs of Middlesbrough (55,934), Richmond (4502), and Scarborough (30,504). It is divided into 19 petty and special sessional divisions. The boroughs of Richmond and Scarborough have separate courts of quarter sessions and commissions of the peace, and the borough of Middlesbrough has a commission of the peace. The riding contains 554 civil parishes and parts of five others. It is almost entirely in the diocese of York and Ripon. The West Riding comprises 9 wapentakes, the city of Ripon (7390), and the municipal boroughs of Barnsley (29,790), Batley (27,505), Bradford (183,032), Dewsbury (29,637), Doncaster (21,139), Halifax (73,630), Harrogate (9482), Huddersfield (81,841), Leeds (309,119), Pontefract (8798), Rotherham (34,782), Sheffield (284,508), Wakefield (30,854), and Keighley (12,085). The riding is divided into 25 petty and special sessional divisions. The city of York, the boroughs of Bradford, Doncaster, Leeds, Pontefract, and Sheffield, and the liberty of Ripon (including the city) have separate courts of quarter sessions and commissions of the peace, and the boroughs of Batley, Dewsbury, Halifax, Huddersfield, and Wakefield have commissions of the peace. The liberty and the borough of Ripon are not included in the West Riding for the purposes of the county rate, but are rated separately. The riding contains 724 civil parishes and parts of six others. It is mostly in the dioceses of York, Ripon, and Manchester. For parliamentary purposes the East Riding is formed into three divisions,—Buckrose, Holderness, and Howdenshire, each returning one member. It also includes the parliamentary borough of Kingston-upon-Hull, returning three members, with part of the borough of York city, which returas two members. The North Riding for parliamentary purposes is formed into four divisions, —Cleveland, Richmond, Thirsk, and Whitby, each returning one member. It also includes the boroughs of Middlesbrough and Scarborough, each returning one member, with portions of the boroughs of Stockton and York city. The West Riding for parliamentary purposes is formed into three divisions, which are again subdivided into districts each returning one member,—the north division into five districts, the south into eight, and the east into six. The riding also includes the following parliamentary boroughs :—Bradford returning three members, Dewsbury one, Halifax two, Huddersfield one, Leeds five, Pontefract one, Sheffield five, and Wakefield one.
History and Antiquities.— Traces of the old British inhabitants are numerous in the Wolds of the East Riding and the moors of the North Riding. Remains of the circular pit-dwellings of ancient Brigantian villages still exist at Egton Grange, Hole Pits, Killing Pits, Danby, and Roseberry Topping. A large number of implements, of both flint and bronze, have been discovered in the barrows on the Wolds and moors, and in the caves of the limestone district. Circles and other stone monuments are not uncommon, the most remarkable being the monolith, 29 feet in height, at Rudston, and the group of monoliths called the Devil’s Arrows at Boroughbridge, 16½, 21½, and 22½ feet in height respectively. On the hill-sides there are numerous ancient earthworks and dykes, such as the fortification on Flamborough Head, incorrectly called the Danes’ dyke. Yorkshire was included in the territory of the Brigantes at the time of its invasion by the Romans in 51; it did not, however, make formal submission till 79. It afterwards formed part of the district of Maxima Caesariensis, of which the capital was Eboracum (York). The central districts of Yorkshire seem to have been densely peopled by the Romans. Watling Street entered the county near Bawtry, crossed the Don at Danum (Doncaster), the Aire at Legeolium (Castleford), and the Wharfe at Calcaria (Tadcaster). Thence it proceeded by Eboracum (York), Isurium (Aldborough), and Cataractonium (Catterick Bridge) to Ad Tisam (Pierce Bridge), where it crossed the Tees. Another road passed eastwards from York to Malton, and various branches traversed the county in different directions. A great variety of Roman remains have been discovered and traces of Roman camps are numerous, such as Cataractonium, the outlines of the station at Old Malton, the ancient wall with the multangular tower at York, and the remains of Isurium. After the departure of the Romans Yorkshire was overrun by the Picts. Subsequently it formed the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Deira to the south of Bernicia (see vol. viii. p. 270). The two were included in Northumbria, which seems to have been under the rule sometimes of a single prince and sometimes of two separate princes in Bernicia and Deira, the northern boundary of the latter kingdom being probably the Tees and the southern always the Humber (see Northumberland, vol. xvii. p. 568 sq., where the early history of the district, including a notice of the Danish invasions, is given). After the Conquest Yorkshire was divided among several Norman earls—including[9:24:749] Alan of Brittany, who held Richmond Castle, Ilbert de Lacy, and William de Percy. The district was at this period frequently invaded by the Scots. In 1138 David of Scotland laid waste the country to the gates of York; but he was completely defeated by the English on 22d August of that year in the battle of the Standard at Northallerton. In 1312 Thomas Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster, raised an insurrection in Yorkshire against Gaveston, the favourite of Edward II., whom he captured in Scarborough and beheaded at Warwick on 19th June. The earl again in 1322 headed a party against the Despensers, but on 16th March was defeated and captured at Boroughbridge, and on 22d was beheaded at Pontefract. During the Wars of the Roses the county was the scene of frequent conflicts, including the battle of Wakefield (31st December 1460), in which Richard, duke of York, was defeated by Queen Margaret and slain, and the battle of Towton (29th March 1461), in which Edward IV. defeated Henry VI. In 1536 the county was the scene of the insurrection under Robert Aske, known as the “Pilgrimage of Grace,” caused by the dissolution of the monasteries. In 1569 a rising took place in Yorkshire under the earls of Westmorland and Northumberland in behalf of Mary Queen of Scots. During the Civil War the county was chiefly Royalist, although some of the most famous Parliamentary officers were Yorkshiremen, the more noted being Fairfax and Lambert. Bradford, Hull, Scarborough, Pontefract, and York sustained long sieges; and on 2d July 1644 the great and decisive battle of the war occurred at Marston Moor. The annals of the county are destitute of further incidents of special historic importance.
Of ancient strongholds or castles Yorkshire has still many interesting examples in a more or less complete condition, including Barden Tower, built in the reign of Henry VII. by Henry Clifford, “the shepherd lord,” which has been in ruins since 1774; Bolton Castle, pronounced by Leland “the fairest in Richmondshire,” a square building with towers at the corners, erected in the reign of Richard II. by Richard Scrope, chancellor of England, occupied by Queen Mary while under the charge of Lord Scrope, besieged during the Civil War, and rendered untenable in 1647; the square tower or keep of Bowes Castle, supposed to have been built by Alan Niger, first earl of Richmond; the gateway tower (erected in the reign of Henry VI. ) of Cawood Castle, said to have been originally built by King Athelstan in 920; the keep and various portions of the walls of the extensive fortress of Conisbrough, of uncertain origin, but probably dating from Saxon times; the remains of Danby Castle, said to have been built shortly after the Conquest by Robert de Bruce; Harewood, of great extent, originally founded soon after the Conquest, but now containing no portions earlier than the reign of Edward III.; the keep, in the Early English style, and other remains of Helmsley, built in the 12th century by Robert de Roos surnamed Fursan; detached portions, including the principal tower, of Knaresborough, probably dating originally from Norman times; the picturesque remains of the quadrangular fortress of Middleham, built soon after the Conquest by Robert FitzRanulph, afterwards possessed by the Nevilles, and rendered untenable by order of Parliament in 1647; the ruins of the ancient stronghold of Mulgrave, said to have been originally founded two centuries before the Conquest by a Saxon giant named Wade or Wada, dismantled after the Civil War; the extensive remains—including Rosamond’s Tower, associated with the misfortunes of Fair Rosamond, the mistress of Henry II. —of Pickering Castle, of unknown date, dismantled after the Civil War; the ruins of Pontefract, formerly one of the most important fortresses of the kingdom, built by Ilbert de Lacy about 1080; a few remains of Ravensworth Castle, dating from before the Conquest; the keep and other remains of the great Norman fortress of Richmond, founded about 1070 by Alan Rufus of Brittany; the tower of Ripley, built in 1555 by Sir William Ingilby, included in the modern mansion; slight remains of the fortress of Sandal, erected in 1320 by John, eighth earl of Warren; the great tower, in the Roman style, and other remains of the extensive fortress of Scarborough, founded by William le Gros in 1136; the detached ruins of Sheriff Hutton, founded by Bertram de Bulmer in the reign of Stephen; slight remains of the ancient Skelton Castle; Skipton Castle, of various dates, but originally Norman; Slingsby Castle, originally built probably soon after the Conquest; the ruins of Spofforth, originally erected by Henry de Percy in 1309; the foundations of the keep and some fragments of the walls of Tickhill, built or enlarged by Roger de Busli in the 11th century; the remains of Whorlton, dating from the time of Richard II.; and one side of the great quadrangular castle of Wressell, built by Thomas Percy, earl of Worcester, in the reign of Richard II.
At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries Yorkshire possessed 28 abbeys, 26 priories, 23 nunneries, 30 friaries, 13 cells, 4 commanderies of Knights Hospitallers, and 4 preceptories of the Knights Templars. The principal monastic ruins still existing are St Mary’s, York (see York) ; Bolton Priory, generally called Bolton Abbey, one of the most romantically situated ruins in the kingdom, originally founded at Embsay, two miles distant, by William de Meschines for Augustinian canons, removed to its present situation by his daughter Alice over against the spot where her only son perished in the Wharfe; the church and other ruins in the Early English style of Byland Abbey, founded for Cistercian monks in the 12th century; the picturesque ruins of Easby near Richmond, containing interesting examples of Norman and Early English, founded in 1152 for Praemonstratensians by Ronaldus, constable of Richmond Castle; Egglestone on the Tees, founded in the 12th century for Premonstratensians; Fountains Abbey, one of the finest and most complete among the monastic ruins of the kingdom, exhibiting fine specimens of various styles of architecture from Norman to Perpendicular, founded in 1132 for certain monks of the Benedictine abbey of St Mary’s, York, who had adopted the Cistercian rule; the eastern end of the church of Guisbrough Priory in the Pointed style, founded in 1119 by Robert de Brace, the burial-place of many illustrious nobles; the picturesque ruins of Jervaulx, exhibiting examples of Norman and Early English, founded in 1156 for Cistercian monks by Conan, fifth earl of Richmond; the gateway and other remains of Kirkham, founded in 1121 by Walter l'Espec; the beautiful ruins of Kirkstall, exhibiting remarkably fine examples of Norman, founded in 1152 by Henry de Lacy for Cistercian monks from Fountains Abbey; the church, refectory, and other remains, in the Early English style with some traces of Norman, of Rievaulx Abbey, founded in 1131 by Walter l’Espec. There are other monastic remains of less importance at Bridlington, Coverham, Marrick, Meaux, Monk Bretton, Mount Grace, Old Malton, Roche, Rosedale, Sawley, Selby, Watton, and Whitby. In respect of church architecture Yorkshire excels any other county in the kingdom for variety of style, and the size and importance of many of the buildings. Space forbids entrance into minute details; but it may be mentioned here that, in addition to the cathedral churches of York, Ripon, and Beverley, there are several other churches on a very large scale, including St Mary’s, Beverley, chiefly Perpendicular, very elaborate in style, originally built by Archbishop Thurstan in the 12th century; the parish church of Bradford, a very fine example of Decorated; the priory church of Bridlington, containing fine examples of Norman, Early English, and Perpendicular; Halifax parish church, chiefly of the 15th century; St Augustine’s church, Hedon, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, with some transition Norman; Howden, one of the finest in Yorkshire, chiefly 13th century with later additions; Holy Trinity, Hull, one of the largest parish churches in England, of the 13th century, chiefly Early English and Perpendicular; St Mary’s, Masham, dating from Saxon times and having a fine Norman tower; St Patrick’s, Patrington, in the Decorated style, with a remarkably graceful spire, 189 feet in height; All Saints, Rotherham, a beautiful cruciform building, described by Rickman as “one of the finest Perpendicular churches of the north”; the abbey church, Selby, containing fine specimens of Norman, Early English, and Decorated; the parish church, Sheffield, chiefly Perpendicular; St Mary’s, Thirsk, said to have been built out of the ruins of the old castle, chiefly Perpendicular; and Wakefield parish church, chiefly of the latter part of the 15th century, with a spire 250 feet in height, rebuilt in 1860-61.
The bibliography of Yorkshire is very extensive. For histories of the several towns and districts reference may be made to Anderson’s English Topography. The chief works relating to Yorkshire as a whole are Leland’s Itinerary, Allen's History of Yorkshire, 3 vols., 1828-31; Baines’s Yorkshire Past and Present, 4 vols., 1871-77; and Smith’s Old Yorkshire, 5 vols., 1881-84. Among numerous works on the geology, reference may be made to Phillips’s Geology of the Yorkshire Coast, 3d ed., 1875; Davis and Lees, West Yorkshire, 1878; Bird’s Sketch of the Geology of Yorkshire, 1881; and Simpson’s Fossils of Yorkshire, 1884. In the publications of the Surtees Society there are many volumes of genealogical or antiquarian interest relating to the county, and in Journ. Yorks. Arch. Soc. many valuable topographical and historical papers. See also Lefroy’s Ruined Abbeys of Yorks., 1883, and Bulmer’s Arch. Studies in Yorks., 1887. (T. F. H.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 746 [9:24:746] | |
kp-eb0924-074901-0798m | YORK, a cathedral city and archbishop’s see, the county town of Yorkshire, a county in itself, and a municipal and parliamentary borough, is situated on the river Ouse at its junction with the Foss, and on the main joint line of the North Eastern and Great Northern Railways, 188 miles north of London. The surrounding country is flat, but the plain of York is one of the richest and most fertile districts in England. While the special feature of York is the cathedral, the city generally has an antique appearance, with narrow picturesque streets, the remains of ancient walls, and many churches and other buildings of considerable architectural interest. The Ouse is crossed by three bridges for general traffic,—the Ouse bridge, of three elliptical arches, erected 1810-20 where a bridge had stood from time immemorial; Lendal bridge, opened in 1863, a handsome structure of iron, consisting of a single arch 175 feet in span; and Skeldergate bridge, 1880, constructed of iron resting on stone piers. The Foss is crossed by five bridges. Of the old Roman city there are some remains of the fortifications, including ten sides of a thirteen-sided building called the multangular tower, occupying one of [9:24:750] the four angles of the ancient wall, with the lower part of the wall leading from this tower to Bootham Bar, the upper part of the wall being of later origin. The walls of the English city, enclosing a much wider area, though they have undergone reconstruction at various periods and were much battered during the siege of the city in 1644, are in remarkably good preservation, especially the portion to the west of the Ouse. They contain Norman and Early English architecture, but the bulk of the walls are in the Decorated style. There are four principal gates or “bars” —Micklegate Bar, at the southern entrance to the city, where the heads of traitors were formerly exposed, consist-
1684. It formed the keep or donjon of the later fortress, which was dismantled at the Civil War and converted into a prison. The debtors’ prison, erected in 1708, and the North and East Riding assize courts, erected in 1777, are also included within the castle wall, which was constructed in 1836.
The cathedral of St Peter, if surpassed by some other English cathedrals in certain special features, is as a whole the most striking and imposing specimen of ecclesiastical architecture in England. It is in the form of a Latin cross, consisting of nave with aisles, transepts, choir with aisles, a central tower, and two western towers. The extreme external length is 524 feet 6 inches, the breadth across the transepts 250 feet, the height of the central tower 213 feet, and the height of the western towers 202 feet. The material is magnesian limestone. The cathedral occupies the site of the wooden church in which King Edwin was baptized by Paulinus on Easter Day 627.
ing of a square tower built over a circular arch, probably Norman, with embattled turrets at the angles; Bootham Bar, the main entrance from the north, having also a Norman arch; Monk Bar, on the Scarborough road, the most imposing of the four, probably belonging to the 14th century, formerly called Goodramgate, which after the Restoration was changed to Monk Bar in honour of General Monk; and Walmgate Bar, belonging to the time of Edward I. and retaining the barbican rebuilt in 1648. Of the Norman fortress built by William the Conqueror in 1068 some portions were probably incorporated in Clifford’s Tower, which was partly destroyed by fire in
After his baptism Edwin, according to Bede, began to construct “a large and more noble basilica of stone,” but it was partly destroyed during the troubles which followed his death, and was repaired by Archbishop Wilfrid. The building suffered from fire in 741, and, after it had been repaired by Archbishop Albert, was described by Alcuin as “a most magnificent basilica.” At the time of the Norman invasion the Saxon cathedral, along with the library of Archbishop Egbert, perished in the fire by which the greater part of the city was destroyed, the only relic of it now remaining being the central wall of the crypt. It was reconstructed by Archbishop Thomas of Bayeux (1070-1100); but of this building few portions now remain. The apsidal choir and crypt were reconstructed by Archbishop Roger (1154-91), the south transept by Archbishop Walter de Gray (1215-55), and the north transept and central tower by John Romanus, treasurer of the cathedral (1228-56). With the exception of the crypt, [9:24:751] the transepts are the oldest portions of the building now remaining. They represent the Early English style at its best, and the view across the great transept is unsurpassed for architectural effect. The south transept is the richest and most elaborate in its details, one of its principal features being the magnificent rose window; and the north transept contains a series of beautiful lancet windows called the Five Sisters. The foundation of the new nave was laid by Archbishop Romanus (1285-96), son of the treasurer, the building of it being completed by Archbishop Melton about 1345. The chapter-house was built during the same period. The west front, consisting of a centre and two divisions corresponding with the nave and aisles, is one of the finest features of the whole building, and has been described as “more architecturally perfect as a composition and in its details than that of any other English cathedral,” the great window above the door being, in the words of Mr Britton, “an unrivalled specimen of the leafy tracery that marks the style of the middle of the 14th century.” In 1361 Archbishop Thoresby (1352-73) began the lady chapel and presbytery, both in the Early Perpendicular style. The rebuilding of the choir, begun about the same period, was not completed till about 1400. It is a very fine specimen of Late Perpendicular, the great east window being one of the finest in the world. With the rebuilding of the choir the whole of the ancient Norman edifice was removed, the only Norman architecture now remaining being the eastern portion of the crypt of the second period, built by Archbishop Roger (1154-91). To correspond with later alterations, the central tower was re-cased and changed into a Perpendicular lantern tower, the work being completed in 1444. The south-west tower was begun in 1432 during the treasurership of John de Bermingham, and the north-west tower in 1470. With the erection of this tower the church was completed as it now stands, and on 3d February 1472 it was re-consecrated by Archbishop Neville. On 2d February 1829 the woodwork of the choir was set on fire by Jonathan Martin, a madman. On 2d May 1840 a fire broke out in the southwest tower, reducing it to a mere shell. The cathedral within recent years has undergone extensive restoration.
Next to the cathedral the most interesting building in York is St Mary’s Abbey, situated in Museum Gardens, founded for Benedictines by Alan, earl of Richmond, and latterly one of the most powerful ecclesiastical establishments in England, its head having the rank of a mitred abbot with a seat in parliament. The principal remains of the abbey are the north wall and the ruins of the church, in the Early English and Decorated style, and the principal gateway with a Norman arch. The hospitium, a curious building of wood, is now used as a museum of antiquities, and contains a fine collection of Roman remains discovered in the vicinity. A considerable portion of the abbey was employed for the erection of the king’s manor, a palace for the lord president of the north, now occupied as a school for the blind. In the gardens is also situated the ambulatory of St Leonard’s hospital, founded by King Athelstan and rebuilt by Stephen. Besides the cathedral, York possesses a large number of churches of special architectural interest, including All Saints, North Street, Decorated and Perpendicular, with a spire 120 feet in height; Christ Church, with south door in the Decorated style, supposed to occupy the site of the old Roman palace; Holy Trinity in Goodramgate, Decorated and Perpendicular with Perpendicular tower; Holy Trinity, Micklegate, in a dilapidated condition, with Roman masonry in its foundation walls; St Denis, Walmgate, with rich Norman doorway and Norman tower; St Helen’s, St Helen’s Square, chiefly Decorated; St John’s, North Street, chiefly Perpendicular; St Lawrence, without the bar of Walmgate, with rich Norman doorway; St Margaret’s, Walmgate, celebrated for its curiously sculptured Norman porch and doorway; St Mary the Elder, Bishophill, Early English and Decorated, with brick tower, rebuilt in 1659; St Mary the Younger, Bishophill, with a square tower in the Saxon style, rebuilt probably in the 13th century; St Mary, Castlegate, with Perpendicular tower and spire 154 feet in height; St Michael-le-Belfry, founded in 1066, but rebuilt in 1538 in the Late Perpendicular style; and St Olave, Mary-gate, Perpendicular, said to have been founded by Siward, earl of Northumberland. Among the principal secular buildings are the guild hall, with a fine old room in the Perpendicular style, erected in 1446, and containing a number of stained-glass windows; the mansion-house, built in 1725 from designs by the earl of Burlington; the assembly rooms, erected in 1730, also from designs by the earl of Burlington, with the concert-room adjoining, built in 1823; the corn exchange; the infantry barracks; the cattle market; the theatre, founded by Tate Wilkinson in 1765, and lately re-faced in the Gothic style by the corporation, who own the property; the De Grey rooms for balls and concerts; the fine old merchant’s hall; the merchant tailors’ hall; and the masonic hall. The public institutions of a learned or educational character include the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, whose museum in the Grecian style was opened in February 1830; the subscription library, instituted 1784, and containing upwards of 20,000 volumes; the York institute of science and literature, established in 1827, and removed to the present premises in 1846; the Wilberforce school for the blind; the York fine art and industrial institution; and the Government school of art. The charities include the York county hospital, the union workhouse, the dispensary, Colton’s hospital for 8 poor men, Harrison’s hospital, Dorothy Wilson’s hospital (founded in 1777) for 16 poor women, Sir Arthur Ingram’s hospital (founded in 1640) for 10 poor widows, and the old maids’ hospital for 10 poor spinsters. The principal schools are St Peter’s cathedral grammar-school (originally endowed in 1557), Archbishop Holgate’s grammar-school, the York and diocesan grammar-school, and the blue-coat school for boys (founded in 1705), with the associated grey-coat school for girls.
In modern times York has ceased to retain its commercial importance; but it possesses several iron foundries, railway engineering works, a large glass factory, breweries, flour-mills, tanneries, glove manufactories, and confectionery and other minor establishments. Within its municipal limits the city of York constitutes a separate division of the county of York; the municipal city and the ainsty are for parliamentary purposes included in the North Riding, for registration purposes in the East Riding, and for all other purposes in the West Riding. The parliamentary city of York, which formerly extended beyond the municipal limits, is partly in the North and partly in the East Riding, The corporation consists of a lord mayor, 12 aldermen, and 36 councillors. The city returns two members to parliament. In 1884 the boundaries of the city were extended to include the townships of Holgate and St Olave, and part of the townships of Clifton, Dringhouses, Fulford, Heworth, and Middlethorpe. The population of the municipal borough (area 1979 acres) was 43,796 in 1871 and 49,530 in 1881, and that of the parliamentary borough (area 2789 acres) 50,765 in 1871 and 60,343 in 1881. The new area is about 3553 acres, with a population estimated at over 70,000 in 1888.
York, the British name of which was Caer-Ebroc, was chosen by the Romans as an important depot after the conquest of the Brigantes by Agricola in 79 and named Eboracum. Ultimately it became the military capital and centre of the Roman power in Britain. The original Roman city was rectangular in form, about 650 yards by 550, and built somewhat after the plan of ancient Rome on the east bank of the Ouse. In York the emperors sat in the praetorium, and a temple was erected there to Bellona. The first emperor to take up his residence in York was Hadrian, when he visited Britain in 120. Severus died at York in February 211, and his body is supposed to have been burnt at Severus’s Hill, a short distance south of the city. Constantius Chlorus also died at York in July 306, and his son Constantine the Great was there inaugurated Roman emperor. Early in the 7th century the city, under the name of Eoforwic, became the capital of the Bretwaldas. Edwin after his conversion in 627 made it an archbishop’s see. The province of York, of which Paulinus was the first bishop, formerly included a great part of Scotland, but is now confined to the six northern dioceses of England. From the time of Archbishop Egbert (732-766) York became celebrated as a school of learning and under Alcuin was one of the most famous places of education in Europe. The city was one of the principal Danish settlements and seats of commerce, its population in 990 being estimated at 30,000. It was the capital of the Danish jarl; and Siward is stated to have died at York in 1055 and to have been buried in St Olave’s church. After the death of Edward the Confessor York was captured by Harold Hardrada, who, however, was shortly afterwards defeated and slain at Stamford Bridge. It was captured by William I. in 1068 and to guard it he erected a tower; but it was re-taken and the whole Norman garrison put to death. In revenge for their slaughter William, on re-capturing the city after a siege of six months, devastated the country between York and Durham. In 1175 Henry II. held the first English parliament at York, when Malcolm of Scotland did homage for his kingdom. The city was frequently visited by subsequent monarchs, and was the scene of important conventions and parliaments. After the suppression of the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1569, the Council of the North was established at York. The city was besieged during the Civil War by the Parliamentary troops, to whom it surrendered on 16th July 1644. York received its first charter of incorporation from Henry I.
[9:24:752]
See Drake’s Eboracum, 1736; Sheahan and Whellan’s History of York, 1855-56; Hargrove’s History of York, 1818; Dixon’s Fasti Eboracenses, 1863; Ornsby’s Diocesan History of York, 1882; Raine’s Historians of the Church of York, 1879-86; Davies’s Walks through York, 1880; Twyford’s York and York Castle, 1883; and Benson and Jefferson’s Picturesque York, 1886. (T. F. H.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 749 [9:24:749] | |
kp-eb0924-075201-0801m | YORK, a borough and the county seat of York county, Pennsylvania, United States, is situated upon Codorus Creek, a branch of the Susquehanna river, and upon three railway lines,—the Pennsylvania, the Northern Central, and the Peachbottom. The surrounding country is undulating and is devoted to agriculture. The city is regularly laid out, with streets running diagonally to the cardinal points. It contains some manufactories of agricultural implements, paper-mills, car-shops, &c. The population in 1880 was 13,940; in 1870 it was 11,003.
The settlement of York dates from 1741. For nearly a year (1777-78) it was the place of meeting of the Continental Congress. In 1787 York was incorporated as a borough. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 752 [9:24:752] | |
kp-eb0924-075202-0801m | YORK, House of. Richard, duke of York, who claimed the crown of England in opposition to Henry VI., though he never succeeded to the throne himself, was, nevertheless, the founder of a royal line. It may be said, indeed, that his claim, at the time it was advanced, was rightly barred by prescription, the House of Lancaster having then occupied the throne for three generations, and that it was really owing to the misgovernment of Margaret of Anjou and her favourites that it was advanced at all. Yet it was founded upon strict principles of lineal descent, and was certainly a strong one, if it could only be maintained that hereditary right did not suffer from interruption. For the duke was descended from Lionel, duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III., while the House of Lancaster came of John of Gaunt, a younger brother of Lionel. The House of Lancaster, therefore, had been clearly in wrongful possession of the throne, and Richard, duke of York, claimed it as the true heir. One thing which might possibly have been considered an element of weakness in his claim was that it was derived through females,—an objection actually brought against it by Chief-Justice Fortescue. For Lionel, duke of Clarence, left only a daughter, Philippa, who married Edmund Mortimer, third earl of March; and the male line of the Mortimers also failed on the death of Edmund, the fifth earl, whose sister, and ultimately his sole heir, Anne, married Richard, earl of Cambridge, and became by him the duke of York’s mother. But a succession through females could not reasonably have been objected to after Edward Iii.’s claim to the crown of France; and, apart from strict legality, the duke’s claim was probably supported in the popular estimation by the fact that he was descended from Edward III. through his father no less than through his mother. For his father, Richard, earl of Cambridge, was the grandson of Edmund, duke of York, fifth son of Edward III.; and he himself was the direct lineal heir of this Edmund, just as much as he was of Lionel, duke of Clarence. His claim was also favoured by the accumulation of hereditary titles and estates. The earldom of Ulster, the old inheritance of the De Burghs, had descended to him from Lionel, duke of Clarence; the earldom of March came from the Mortimers, and the dukedom of York and the earldom of Cambridge from his paternal ancestry. And in addition to all this his own marriage with Cecily Neville, though she was but the youngest daughter of Ralph, first earl of Westmoreland, allied him to a powerful family in the north of England, to whose support both he and his son were greatly indebted.
The reasons why the claims of the line of Clarence had been so long forborne are not difficult to explain. Roger Mortimer, fourth earl of March, was actually designated by Richard II. as his successor; but he died the year before Richard was dethroned, and his son Edmund, the fifth earl, was but a child at Henry IV.’s usurpation. Henry took care to secure his person; but the claims of the family troubled the whole of his own and the beginning of his son’s reign. It was an uncle of this Edmund who took part with Owen Glendower and the Percies; and for advocating the cause of Edmund Archbishop Scrope was put to death. And it was to put the crown on Edmund’s head that his brother-in-law Richard, earl of Cambridge, conspired against Henry V. soon after his accession. But this was the last attempt made in favour of the family for a long time. The plot was detected, being revealed, it is said, by the earl of March himself, who does not appear to have given it any encouragement; the earl of Cambridge was beheaded. The popularity gained by Henry V. in his French campaigns secured the weak title of the House of Lancaster against further attack for forty years.
Richard, duke of York, seems to have taken warning by his father’s fate; but, after seeking for many years to correct by other means the deplorable weakness of Henry VI.’s government, he first took up arms against the ill advisers who were his own personal enemies, and at length claimed the crown in parliament as his right. The Lords, or such of them as did not purposely stay away from the House, admitted that his claim was unimpeachable, but suggested as a compromise that Henry should retain the crown for life, and the duke and his heirs succeed after Henry’s death. This was accepted by the duke and an Act to that effect received Henry’s own assent. But the Act was repudiated by Margaret of Anjou and her followers, and the duke was slain at Wakefield fighting against them. In little more than two months, however, his son was proclaimed king at London by the title of Edward IV., and the bloody victory of Towton immediately after drove his enemies into exile and paved the way for his coronation.
We need not follow the vicissitudes of Edward’s reign, of which a brief account will be found under Edward IV. (vol. vii. p. 684). After his recovery of the throne in 1471 he had little more to fear from the rivalry of the House of Lancaster. But the seeds of distrust had already been sown among the members of his own family, and in 1478 his brother Clarence was put to death—secretly indeed, within the Tower, but still by his authority and that of parliament—as a traitor. In 1483 Edward himself died; and his eldest son, Edward V., after a nominal reign of two months and a half, was put aside by his uncle, the duke of Gloucester, who became Richard III., and then caused him and his brother Richard, duke of York, to be murdered. But in little more than two years the usurper was defeated and slain at Bosworth by the earl of Richmond, who, being then proclaimed king as Henry VII., shortly afterwards fulfilled his pledge to marry the eldest daughter of Edward IV. and so unite the Houses of York and Lancaster.
Here the dynastic history of the House of York ends, for its claims were henceforth merged in those of the House of Tudor. But the family history has still much to do with the story of those reigns. For, although the union of the Roses ought to have extinguished controversy, a host of debatable questions and plausible pretexts for rebellion still remained. The legitimacy of Edward IV.’s children had been denied by Richard III. and his parliament, and, though the Act was denounced as scandalous, the slander might still be re-asserted. The duke of Clarence had left two children, a son and a daughter, and the attainder of their father could not be a greater bar to the crown than the attainder of Henry VII. himself. Seeing this, Henry had, immediately after his victory at Bosworth, secured the person of the son, who was named Edward, earl of Warwick, and kept him a prisoner in the Tower of London. Yet a formidable rebellion was raised in his behalf by means of Lambert Simnel, who, personating the prisoner in the Tower, professed to have escaped, went to Ireland, and, [9:24:753] after being actually crowned as king in Christchurch cathedral, Dublin, came over with a host of Yorkist sympathizers into England, where he was defeated and taken prisoner at the battle of Stoke in 1487. The earl of Warwick lived for twelve years later in unjust confinement, and was ultimately put to death in 1499 because he had consented to a plot for his own liberation. As to his sister Margaret, she was married to one of Henry VII.’s Welsh followers, Sir Richard Pole (or Poole), and could give no trouble, so that, when Henry VIII. came to the throne, he thought it politic to treat her with kindness. He made her countess of Salisbury, reversed her brother’s attainder, created her eldest son, Henry, Lord Montague, and caused one of her younger sons, Reginald, who displayed much taste for learning, to be very carefully educated. This, however, was the very thing which involved the whole family in ruin. For Henry looked to the learning and abilities of Reginald Pole to vindicate before Europe the justice of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon; and, when Pole not only was unable to comply but was conscientiously compelled to declare the very opposite, the king’s indignation knew no bounds. Pole himself was safe, having secured some time before a retreat in Italy. He was even, for his great merits, made a cardinal by the pope. But this only made matters worse for his family at home: his brother, Lord Montague, and even his mother, the aged countess of Salisbury, were beheaded as traitors because they had continued to correspond with him. Cardinal Pole, however, came back to his own country with great honour in the reign of Queen Mary, and was made archbishop of Canterbury on the deprivation of Cranmer.
Two nephews of this cardinal, named Arthur and Edmund Poole, are the last members of the family whom it is needful here to mention. Early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, being ardent young men, they conspired to go over to the duke of Guise in F rance, hoping to return with an army into Wales and so promote the claims of Mary Queen of Scots to the crown of England, for which service the elder, Arthur, expected to be restored to the dukedom of Clarence. The result was that they were condemned to death, but were only imprisoned for the rest of their days in the Tower, where they both carved inscriptions on the walls of their dungeon, which are still visible in the Beauchamp tower.
There was yet another branch of the House of York which might have given trouble to the Tudors, if they had not been very narrowly watched and ultimately extinguished. Of the sisters of Edward IV. the eldest, Anne, who married the duke of Exeter, left only one daughter by her second husband, Sir Thomas St Leger; but the second, Elizabeth, married John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and had several children of both sexes. Their eldest son was created earl of Lincoln during his father’s life, and Richard III., after the death of his own son, had designated him as his successor. Disappointed of a kingdom by the success of Henry VII., he joined in Simnel’s rebellion and was killed at the battle of Stoke. His brother Edmund thus became heir to his father; but in the reduced circumstances of the family he agreed to forbear the title of duke and take that of earl of Suffolk. He continued for some years in favour with the king, who made him a knight of the Garter; but, having killed a man in a passion, he fled abroad and was for some time entertained at the court of the emperor Maximilian and afterwards of Philip, king of Castile, when resident in the Low Countries, before his departure for Spain. But Philip, having been driven on the English coast when going to take possession of his Spanish kingdom, was entertained at Windsor by Henry VII., to whom he promised to deliver up the fugitive on condition that his life should be spared. Edmund de la Pole accordingly was brought back to his native country, to be lodged in the Tower for the remainder of his days. And, though the promise to spare his life was kept by the king who gave it, his son Henry VIII. caused him to be executed in 1513, when war broke out with France, apparently for treasonable correspondence with his brother Richard, then in the French service. After his death Richard de la Pole, remaining in exile, called himself earl of Suffolk, and was flattered occasionally by Francis I. with faint hopes of the crown of England. He was killed at the battle of Pavia in 1525. There were no more De la Poles who could advance even the most shadowy pretensions to disturb the Tudor dynasty.
[9:24:754] | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 752 [9:24:752] | |
kp-eb0924-075401-0803m | YORUBA, or Yariba, a country of West Africa, occupying the eastern half of the Slave Coast region in 6°-9° N. lat. and 3°-7° E. long. Taken in its widest sense, so as to include the whole domain of the Yoruba race and speech, the Yoruba country stretches from the Bight of Benin northwards in the direction of the unexplored region of Borgu, and from the ill-defined eastern frontier of Dahomey to the Niger and its delta, which enclose it on the northeast, east, and south-east. Within these limits it covers an area of at least 40,000 square miles, with a population roughly estimated at over 2,000,000. But since 1820-21, when the old Yoruba empire was broken up by the Fulah invaders, the northern part, comprised between the Niger and the water-parting of the streams flowing north to that river and south to the Gulf of Guinea, has been included in the Fulah state of Gando. This water-parting, which constitutes the main physical feature of the land, is formed by the eastern continuation of the mountain range which in the Mahi country, north of Dahomey, appears to rise to over 6000 feet (Skertchley), but which in Yoruba gradually falls to considerably under 2000 feet. But towards the east, about the upper course of the river Oshun, the system again rises to what is described as “a very mountainous country” (Higgins and Smith). The city of llorin, near the northern slope of the divide, stands at an elevation of a little over 1300 feet, which is probably about the average height of the range in Yoruba. Gerhard Rohlfs, who in 1867 traversed the whole region from Rabba on the Niger to Lagos on the Gulf of Guinea, describes the section north of the water-parting as an open, gently sloping, and highly cultivated plain, to which the profusion of flowering plants gives the aspect of a vast garden. Here abundant crops of cereals, cotton, yams, ground-nuts, and kola nuts are raised. South of the divide the land, which is intersected by the nearly parallel courses of the rivers Ogun, Omi, Oshun, Oni, and Oluwa, falls in continuous undulations down to the coast, the open cultivated ground gradually giving place in the same direction to forest tracts, where the most characteristic tree is the oil-palm. Flowering trees and shrubs are here also plentiful, while the chief cultivated plants are corn, yams, plantains, bananas, tobacco, cotton, okro, groundnuts, and ata-ile yielding a yellow dye (Higgins and Smith). As the sea is approached, the wooded tracts merge almost everywhere in a broad zone of dense primeval forest, completely separating the arable lands of the interior from the coast lagoons.
These lagoons, lying between the outer surf-beaten beach and the inner shore line, form a navigable highway of still waters, which in many places is several miles in extent. During the dry season the rivers discharging into the lagoons are unable to force a passage seawards; but after the rains they find an outlet, now at one point now at another, while here and there the natives themselves often excavate passages for their boats between the inner and outer waters. Of all the lagoons the most extensive are those of Leckie in the east and Ikoradu (Lagos) in the west. At its northern extremity the latter receives the discharge of the Ogun, the largest river in Yoruba, whose current is strong enough to keep the seaward channel open throughout the year. Hence the great importance of the British port of Lagos, which lies in smooth water at the inner entrance of this channel.
From Lagos, which, besides Badagry (about 40 miles farther west), is the only station actually occupied by England on this coast, the British Government exercises a sort of benevolent suzerainty over the whole of the Yoruba country. In 1886 it despatched to the inland tribes two commissioners (Higgins and Smith) for the purpose of bringing to a close the intertribal wars by which the country had for years been wasted, and also of inducing the chiefs to give up the practice of human sacrifices, which, as in Dahomey and Ashantee, though to a less degree, has always prevailed throughout this region. The commissioners obtained and embodied in their reports {Blue Books, 1887) a considerable amount of information regarding the present political and social condition of the Yoruba peoples. Since the dismemberment of their empire by the Fulahs (1820-21) the country has been divided into a number of semiindependent states, chieftaincies, or kingdoms, hanging loosely together, or rather constantly at war, and with a feeble sense of common nationality. The direct representative of the old Yoruba power is the “alafin” or king of the Yoruba country proper, occupying the northern and central parts of the whole region. Round about this central state are grouped the kingdoms of Ilorin, Ijesha, Ife, and Ondo in the east, Mahin and Jebu in the south, and Egba in the west. The alafin resides at Oyo, on a headstream of the Oshun, a place which as metropolis of the Yoruba nation has succeeded the older capitals, Bohu and Katunga, lying farther north and destroyed during the wars with the Fulahs. Oyo has an estimated population of 70,000 or 80,000; but it is greatly exceeded in size by several other places in Yoruba Land, where for mutual protection the inhabitants have mainly grouped themselves in large walled towns. Thus have sprung up the great cities of Abeokuta (200,000 ?), capital of Egba, on the Ogun, due north of Lagos; Ibadan (150,000), on a branch of the Omi, 30 miles south of Oyo; Ilorin (200,000 ?), one of the great markets of West Africa, capital of the Ilorin state; Ogbomosho (60,000), between Oyo and Ilorin; Ejigbo (40,000), Ilobu (60,000), and Ikirun (60,000), following successively nearly due east from Oyo; Ilesha (40,000), Oshogbo (60,000), and Ede (50,000), following each other due west in the Ilesha state; Ipetumodu (40,000), in Ife; Ode Ondo (60,000), capital of Ondo; Jebu Ode (60,000), Epe (40,000?), and Lagos (75,000), in the Jebu state and British protectorate. The constitution of some of these great urban groups is most remarkable. Thus Abeokuta, dating from 1825, owes its origin to the incessant inroads of the slave-hunters from Dahomey and Ibadan, which compelled the village populations scattered over the open country to take refuge in this rocky^[1. Abeokuta = “under the rocks.” ] stronghold against the common enemy. Here they constituted themselves a free confederacy of some sixty distinct tribal groups, each preserving the traditional customs, religious rites, systems of government, and even the very names, of their original villages. Yet this apparently incoherent aggregate has since held its ground successfully against the powerful armies often sent against the place both by the king of Dahomey from the west and by the people of Ibadan from the east. The different tribes are clearly distinguished by their several tattoo markings, usually some simple pattern of two or more parallel lines, disposed horizontally or vertically on both cheeks or other parts of the face.
Notwithstanding their political feuds, the Yoruba people are distinguished above all the surrounding races for their generally peaceful disposition, love of industry, friendliness, and hospitality towards strangers. Physically they resemble closely their Ewe and Dahomey neighbours, but are of somewhat lighter complexion, taller, and of less pronounced Negro features. Their superior intelligence is shown in their greater susceptibility to Christian and Mohammedan influences, their capacity for trade, and their remarkable progress in the industrial arts. Although the bulk of the nation is still pagan, Islam has made great advancement since the cessation of the Fulah wars, while Protestant and Roman Catholic missions have been at work for many years at Abeokuta, Oyo, Ibádan, and other large towns. Samuel Crowther, the first Negro bishop, who was distinguished as an explorer, geographer, aud linguist, was a native of Yoruba, rescued by the English from slavery and educated at Sierra Leone.
Although agriculture is the chief industry, such useful arts as pottery, weaving, tanning, dyeing, and forging are practised in all the towns. The people make their own agricultural implements, extract a palatable wine from the Baphia vinifera, and weave a stout cotton fabric, which was formerly exported to Brazil, but which can now scarcely stand the competition of cheaper Manchester goods even in the home market. But as builders the Yorubas know no rivals in Negroland. The houses of the chiefs, often containing as many as fifty rooms, are constructed with rare skill, and tastefully decorated with carvings representing symbolic devices, fabulous animals, and even scenes of war or the chase.
Before the introduction of letters the Yorubas are said to have employed knotted strings, like the Peruvian quipus, for recording events of historic interest. Their language, which has been reduced to writing and carefully studied by Crowther, Bouché, Bowen, and other missionaries, is spoken with considerable uniformity throughout the whole of the Yoruba domain, and has even penetrated with the enterprising native traders as far east as Kano in the Haussa country beyond the Niger. The best-known dialectic varieties are those of Egba, Jebu, Ondo, Ife, Ilorin, and Oyo (Yoruba proper, called also Nago); but the discrepancies are slight, while the divergence from the conterminous linguistic groups (Ewe in the west, Ibo, Nupe, and others in the east) appears to be fundamental.
[9:24:755]
The most marked feature is a strong tendency towards monosyllabism, which has been produced by phonetic decay, and which, as in the Indo-Chinese family, has given rise to the principle of intonation, required to distinguish words originally different but reduced by corruption to the condition of homophones. Besides the tones, of which there are three,—high, low, and middle,—Yoruba has also developed a degree of vocalic harmony, in which, as in Ural-Altaic, the vowels of the affixes are assimilated to that of the root. Inflexion, as in Bantu, is effected chiefly by prefixes; and there is a remarkable power of word-formation by the fusion of several relational elements in a single compound term. The Bible and several religious treatises have been translated into Yoruba, which as a medium of general intercourse in West Africa ranks in importance next to Haussa and Mandingam (A. H. K.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 754 [9:24:754] | 9 N 7 E |
kp-eb0924-075501-0804m | YOUGHAL, a seaport, borough, and market town in the county of Cork, Ireland, is situated on the west side of the estuary of the Blackwater, and on the Cork and Youghal branch of the Great Southern and Western Railway, 157 miles south-west of Dublin and 28 east of Cork. The fine collegiate church of St Mary, in the Later Decorated style, was originally erected in the 11th century, but rebuilt in the 13th, and since that time it has been frequently repaired. It contains a fine monument to the first earl of Cork. There are still a few fragments of the Dominican friary founded by Fitzgerald in 1269. Myrtle Grove, formerly the residence of Sir Water Raleigh, still remains. The harbour is safe and commodious, and there are several good quays. At the northern extremity of the harbour the river is crossed by a bridge resting on wooden piles. The principal exports are corn and other agricultural produce; the imports are coal, culm, timber, and slate. Coarse earthenware and bricks are manufactured. There is a salmon fishery in the Blackwater. Youghal is of some repute as a watering-place. The population of the town (area 345 acres) in 1871 was 6081, and in 1881 it was 5826.
Youghal is one of the most ancient towns in Ireland, and was incorporated by King John in 1209. The Franciscan monastery, founded at Youghal by Fitzgerald in 1224, was the earliest house of that order in Ireland. Sir Roger Mortimer landed at Youghal in 1317. The town was plundered by the earl of Desmond in 1579. In 1641 it was garrisoned and defended by the earl of Cork. In 1649 it declared for the Parliament. It sent two members to Parliament from 1374 till the union, after that only one down to 1885, when it was for parliamentary purposes merged in the East Division of the county. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences,
and General Literature. 9th ed., 25 vols. NY: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1875-1889. (Authorized edition.) Image scans: Internet Archive.
This entry: 9th edition, volume 24, page 755 [9:24:755] | |
kp-eb0924-075502-0804m | YOUNG, Arthur (1741-1820), a writer on agriculture and social economy, the third son of Rev. Arthur Young, rector of Bedingfield, in Suffolk, was born on 7th September 1741. After having been for some time at a school at Lavenham, he was in 1758 placed in a mercantile house at Lynn, but showed no taste for commercial pursuits. He gave early evidence of literary inclinations by publishing, when only seventeen years old, a pamphlet On the War in North America and by beginning a periodical work, entitled The Universal Museum, which, however, was soon dropped by the advice of Dr Samuel Johnson.
After his father’s death in 1759, his mother gave him the direction of Bradfield Hall; and in 1767 he undertook on his own account the management of a farm in Essex. Possessing no practical acquaintance with agriculture, but being active-minded and of an inquiring turn, he engaged in experiments of various kinds, and embodied the results of them in A Course of Experimental Agriculture, which appeared in 1770. Though Young’s experiments were, in general, unsuccessful, he acquired in the process of making them a solid knowledge of agriculture; and, writing in a lively style, he was able to make his disquisitions on the subject interesting to the public. He had already commenced a series of journeys through different parts of England and Wales, and gave an account of his observations in books which appeared from 1768 to 1770— A Six Weeks’ Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales, A Six Months’ Tour through the North of England, and the Farmer’s Tour through the East of England. He says that these books contained the only extant information relative to the rental, produce, and stock of England that was founded on actual examination. They were very favourably received at home and abroad, being translated into most Continental languages by 1792.
In 1768 he published the Farmer’s Letters to the People of England, in 1771 the Farmer’s Calendar, which has gone through a great number of editions, and in 1774 his Political Arithmetic, which was soon translated into several foreign languages. About this time Young acted as parliamentary reporter for the Morning Post. He made a tour in Ireland in 1776, and drew up the results, with copious observations on the state of that kingdom, in the years 1776-79, publishing a quarto volume on them in 1780. In 1784 he commenced the publication of the Annals of Agriculture, which was continued for 45 volumes; this work had contributions from many authors, among whom was George III., writing under the nom de plume of Ralph Robinson. Young’s first visit to France was made in 1787. In May of that year he went to join Rochefoucauld-Liancourt at Paris, and accompanied by him and another gentleman travelled south to Bagnères de Luchon, making also an excursion into Spain. In November he was again in London; but in July 1788 he returned to France to study at leisure what he had before cursorily observed. He then saw the western part of the country, travelling alone on horseback, and came back a third time to see the east. The motive of these visits was “to make himself a master of their agriculture, that, if he found anything good and applicable to England, he might copy it.” But he had an eye no less for political and social phenomena, and, traversing France in every direction just before and during the first movements of the Revolution, he has given us interesting and valuable notices of the condition of the people and the conduct of public affairs at that critical juncture. The Travels in France appeared in two vols. 4to in 1792. On his return home he was appointed secretary of the Board of Agriculture, then just formed under the presidency of Sir John Sinclair. In this capacity he gave the most valuable assistance in the collection and preparation of agricultural surveys of the English counties. In 1765 he had married a Miss Allen; but the union is said not to have been a very happy one, though he was of domestic habits and a most affectionate father. His sight failed, and he submitted to an operation for cataract, which proved unsuccessful. He suffered also in his last years from stone. He died in February 1820.
“To the works of Arthur Young,” said Kirwan, “the world is more indebted for the diffusion of agricultural knowledge than to any writer who has yet appeared.” To the same effect is the more recent testimony of Mr Hoskyns, who tells us that “the Farmer's Letters and Calendar, as well as the Tours, displayed the mind and pen of a master in his art, and went far towards laying the foundation of a practical agricultural literature.” But it is as a social and political observer that Young is now best known to the reading public, and the books which have established his reputation in these departments—his Τaur in Ireland aud Travels in France— are still full of interest and instruction.
He found that Ireland had “flourished for the last thirty years to an uncommon degree, more,” he believed, “than any country in Europe and he protested against the turbulence of the population and the outcries of the gentry at a time when Ireland had “experienced more favour from three sessions of a British parliament than from three centuries before.” But he saw clearly and exposed unsparingly the causes which retarded the progress of the nation. He strongly urged the repeal of the penal laws which pressed upon the Catholics; he thought, however, that their disabilities should be removed, not by a single measure, but gradually. He protested against the harshness with which the labouring classes were treated by their superiors, and denounced the middlemen as being, not merely a useless class, but by their oppression and insolent manners the chief causes of popular discontent. He condemned the restrictions imposed by Great Britain on the commerce of Ireland, and also the perpetual interference of the Irish parliament with industry [9:24:756] by prohibitions and bounties; of the latter he censured in specially strong terms the bounty on the inland carriage of corn to Dublin. He deplored the drain of rents and the neglect of their tenantry by absentee proprietors. The state of agriculture, generally low though improving, he found particularly unsatisfactory in Ulster, owing to the prevalence there of the linen manufacture, at that time carried ou in the homes of the people, who were constantly divided between this occupation and the labours of the field. Emigration, he thought, was not sufficiently encouraged; indeed it scarcely existed at the period of his visit. It had previously been practised to a greater extent, and, besides relieving the population which remained, had been useful in removing restless spirits who would have been troublesome at home. He favoured a legislative union of Ireland with Great Britain, though he did not regard such a measure as absolutely uecessary, many of its advantages being otherwise attainable, without incurring the risk of some possible inconveniences.
The soil of France he found in general superior to that of England, and its produce less. Agriculture was neither as well understood nor as much esteemed as in England. He severely censured the higher classes for their neglect of it. “Banishment (from court) alone will force the French nobility to execute what the English do for pleasure—reside upon and adorn their estates.” Young saw the commencement of violence and outrage in the rural districts, being himself more than once in peril from popular suspicion. His sympathies began to take the side of the classes suffering from the excesses of the Revolution, and this change of attitude was distinctly shown by his publication in 1793 of a tract entitled The Example of France a Warning to England. Of the profounder significance of the French outbreak, as the commencement of a world-wide movement and a new era in social history, he seems to have had little idea, and thought the crisis would be sufficiently met by a constitutional adjustment in accordance with the English type. Yet he had much of the feeling which then inspired the Revolutionary actors, and, along with it, it may be added, something of the general sentimentalism of the period. Another enthusiasm he frequently exhibits—namely, for music, and especially for the Italian opera. But his master passion was the devotion to agriculture, which constantly showed itself. He strongly condemned the métayer system then widely prevalent in France, as “perpetuating poverty and excluding instruction,” as, in fact, the curse and ruin of the country. Some of his phrases have been often quoted by the advocates of peasant proprietorship as favouring their view. “The magic of property turns sand to gold.” “Give a man the secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years’ lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert.” But these sentences, in which the epigrammatic form exaggerates a truth, and which might seem to represent the possession of capital as of no importance in agriculture, must not be taken as conveying his approbation of the system of small properties in general. He approved it only when the subdivision was strictly limited, and even then with great reserves; and he remained to the end what J. S. Mill calls him, “the apostle of la grande culture." The French acknowledge the valuable services which his criticisms and counsels rendered to their agriculture. The directory in 1801 ordered his writings on the art to be translated and published at Paris in 20 volumes under the title of Le Cultivateur Anglais. His Travels in France were translated in 1793-94 by Soulès; and a new version by Μ. Lesage, with an introduction by Μ. de Lavergne, appeared in 1856. An interesting review of the latter publication, under the title of Arthur Young et la France de 1789, will be found in Μ. Baudrillart’s Publicistes Modernes, 2d ed., 1873. (J. K. I.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-075601-0805m | YOUNG, Brigham (1801-1877), Mormon president, was born in Whitingham, Vermont, on 1st June 1801. His father was a farmer, and he himself learned the trade of a painter and glazier. He originally belonged to the Baptist Church, but joined the Mormons at Kirtland, Ohio, in 1832. In the same year he was ordained “elder;” in 1835 he was made an apostle; and in 1844 he succeeded Joseph Smith as president. He died at Salt Lake City, on 29th August 1877. See Mormons. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-075602-0805m | YOUNG, Edward (1681-1765), author of Night Thoughts, was born at Upham, near Winchester, in 1681. The minute facts of his life are to be found in the biography contributed to Johnson’s Lives of the Poets by Herbert Croft. The son of the dean of Sarum, educated at Winchester and Oxford (New College and Corpus), Young obtained a law fellowship at All Souls in 1708, and proceeded to use it as a base of operations for gratifying his “ruling passion,” the love of fame. There was at the time an open career for young men of talent who showed ability to recommend the policy and the persons of statesmen in their struggle for power, and Young, full of unbounded energy and eloquence, exuberant to eccentricity, joined in the race with a vigour that soon raised him to distinction. He seems to have been for a time in the family of the earl of Exeter as tutor; but the notorious marquis of Wharton (see Wharton) took a fancy to him, bribed him away from this post with liberal promises of maintenance and patronage, settled two annuities on him, and tried to get him into Parliament. Meantime Young began to publish and to dedicate, the poems and the dedications taken together (The Last Hay, 1713, and The Force of Religion, 1714) showing the simple mixture of piety and worldliness that is one of the notes of his character. He essayed tragedy, writing at mid-day with closed shutters, by the light of a candle fixed in a human skull. Busiris was performed at Drury Lane in 1719, The Revenge in 1721. Far from gloomy in the company of Wharton and his friends, he had a decided bent for gloomy themes when alone, and a most copious and lofty— often extravagantly lofty—eloquence in the treatment of them; a paraphrase of the book of Job was one of his productions about this time. But he showed equal facility in dashing and effective satire: his first great literary success was made with the series of satires published between 1725 and 1728, and collected in the latter year under the title Love of Fame, the Universal Passion. These satires do not bear comparison with Pope’s, to which they pointed the way, but they have a charm of exuberant vitality and power, an irregular abundance of wit and bold imagery, a frequent felicity of diction, that entitle them to Johnson’s praise—“a very great performance”—and enable us to understand the impression produced by Young in conversation. One of the features in Young’s character that disarms resentment of his fulsome adulation, and other extravagances and eccentricities, is his humorous Falstaffian consciousness of his own faults. “Who can write the true absurd like me ?” he cries in one of his satires. He abundantly proved this in Ocean: an Ode, with which he hailed the accession of George II. Soon after, when nearly fifty, he took orders, was appointed a royal chaplain, and presented by his college to the rectory of Welwyn. He was disappointed in his desire of further promotion in the church; he had succeeded some time before in extracting a pension of £200 from Walpole, and this favour was cynically treated as a satisfaction in full of his claims on the Government. The Night Thoughts were published in separate “Nights” between 1742 and 1744. In the preface Young said that “the occasion of this poem was real, not fictitious, and that the facts mentioned did naturally force these moral reflexions on the mind of the writer.” Croft has shown that this statement, though justifiable in the main, has to be taken with some qualifications, and that a common belief that Lorenzo was meant for the author’s own son was undoubtedly a mistake. Still, it is true that Young’s wife, her daughter, and her daughter’s husband died in rapid succession, and the poem —a great work in spite of all its inequalities—was, like In Memoriam, the expression of a real sorrow and search for consolation. Young continued to write occasionally even after he had passed his eightieth year. His death took place on 12th April 1765.
Besides Croft’s Life, there are interesting references to Young in Boswell’s Johnson (see Birkbeck’s ed., iv. 119, v. 270). | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-075603-0805m | YOUNG, Thomas (1773-1829), one of the most remarkable figures alike in literature and science in the beginning of the 19th century in Great Britain. He belonged to a Quaker family of Milverton, Somerset, and was the youngest of ten children, having been born on 13th June 1773. His precocity, especially in the acquirement of languages, was remarkable, being little [9:24:757] inferior to that of Sir W. Rowan Hamilton. But his thirst for knowledge was unlimited in its range. He was not content with languages, mathematics, and physical science: natural science, medicine, and even ancient philosophy were eagerly studied by him; and he was passionately devoted to athletic exercises. His medical studies were pursued successively in London, Edinburgh, Göttingen, and finally at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he took his doctor’s degree. The death of a maternal uncle put him in a position of comfortable independence, and he did not heartily enter upon practice. He was secured in 1802 by the Royal Institution as a colleague of Davy and professor of natural philosophy. Here his special talents found ample occupation, and the chief result was the publication in 1807 of his celebrated Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy, a work which is even now regarded as a valuable authority. Some years before he had made his remarkable discovery of the interference of light, and begun that wonderful series of researches which, as completed by Fresnel, secured the triumph of the undulatory theory. He was foreign secretary of the Royal Society for more than a quarter of a century; and it is curious to note that his reputation stood higher in foreign than in home scientific circles. He was one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute of France. He was one of the Commissioners of Weights and Measures, and secretary to the Board of Longitude, which in those days conducted the Nautical Almanac. A few years before his death he became interested in life assurance, with great benefit to the company whose scientific business he conducted. His death, on 10th May 1829, was probably hastened by the extraordinary amount and variety of the labours he undertook, and the self-sacrificing zeal with which he devoted himself to them.
His Life, by Dr Peacock, dean of Ely and a well-known mathematician, was published in 1855, along with a collection of his Miscellaneous Works and Scientific Memoirs. Young was a somewhat copious contributor to the 6th edition of this Encyclopaedia, and some of the best of his smaller papers appeared in it for the first time. For a résumé of his contributions to the subject of haemadynamics, see Vascular System, p. 97 supra. Another of the multitudinous problems that claimed his attention was the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, in which he had made some progress as early as 1814; see his Account of some Recent Discoveries in Hiero∙ glyphical Literature (London, 1823). | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-075701-0806m | YOUNGSTOWN, a city and the county seat of Mahoning county, Ohio, United States, is situated upon the Mahoning river, a tributary of the Ohio. The prevailing industries of the surrounding country are agriculture and coal-mining. Youngstown is directly connected with six railway lines. Owing to the contour of the site, the city is laid out very irregularly. The population in 1880 was 15,435 (8075 in 1870). The industries of Youngstown are connected chiefly with the manufacture of iron: there are several furnaces and rolling-mills, and manufactories of rails and stoves and of agricultural tools and machines.
Youngstown was laid out in 1797, being one of the first settlements made in that part of Ohio known as the Western Reserve. Since the rebellion it has grown with great rapidity. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-075702-0806m | YPRES (Flem. Yperen), a town of Belgium, capital of an arrondissement in the province of West Flanders, stands in a fertile plain on the Yperlee, 21 miles north-north-west of Lille. In the 14th century it is said to have contained 200,000 inhabitants; and it was long famous for its woollen and linen manufactures, though the once current derivation of the word “diaper” from the name of this town can no longer be maintained. Of the old fortifications some traces still remain, as well as a few picturesque dwelling-houses of the 14th and 15th centuries. The fine Gothic cloth hall (1201-1342), with a façade 462 feet in length, is pierced by two rows of pointed windows; there are two corner turrets; and in the centre rises a massive square clock tower. The forty-four statues of counts of Flanders and their consorts which formerly adorned it were restored in 1860. The town-hall (1730) contains some interesting frescos and sculptures of modern date. The finest parts of the Gothic cathedral of St Martin (1221-70) are the choir, and the portal and rose window of the south transept; in the interior is some good woodcarving; the old frescos were “restored” in 1826. In the cloister is the tomb of Cornelius Jansen (q.v.). The town contains several other churches, as well as hospitals, a military school, a museum, and a public library. The chief manufactures are those of linen thread and lace and of woollen and linen cloth; dyeing, bleaching, and tanning are also carried on. The population in 1876 was 15,515. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-075703-0806m | YRIARTE. See Iriarte. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-075704-0806m | YTTRIUM, the name of a rare element which in its character is closely allied to, and in nature is always associated with, cerium, lanthanum, didymium, and erbium (see Lanthanum, vol. xiv. p. 291). For the preparation of yttrium compounds the best raw material is a rare Swedish mineral called gadolinite, which, according to König, consists of 22∙61 per cent. of silica, 34∙64 of yttria, Y 2 O 3 , and 42∙75 of the oxides of erbium, cerium, didymium, lanthanum, iron, beryllium, calcium, magnesium, and sodium. Bunsen and Bahr, in 1866, elaborated a method for extracting the several rare oxides in the state of purity; but the method is too complicated to reproduce here.^[1. See the handbooks of chemistry and the original memoir in Liebig’s Annalen, vol. cxxxvii. p. 1. ] Metallic yttrium is obtainable by reducing the chloride with potassium; but this operation has never been carried out with pure chloride. Yttria, Y 2 O 3 , is a yellowish white powder, which at high temperatures radiates out a most brilliant white light. It is soluble, slowly but completely, in mineral acids. It is recognized most surely by its very characteristic spark spectrum. Solutions of yttria salts in their behaviour to reagents are not unlike those of zirconia. The atomic weight of yttrium, according to the latest researches,^[2. Cleve, Jahresber. der Chemie, 1882, p. 15. ] is 89∙02, if O = 16. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-075705-0806m | YUCATAN, a peninsular region of Central America, forming the south-eastern extremity of Mexico (see vol. xvi. pl. I.), of which, since 1861, it constitutes the two confederate states of Campeche (Campeachy) in the west and Yucatan in the east. At its neck the peninsula is conterminous on the south-east with British Honduras, on the south-west with the state of Tabasco (Mexico), and on the south with the republic of Guatemala, the boundaries towards these territories being largely of a purely conventional character. From this base the land projects in a compact rectangular mass between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, west and east, for 280 miles northwards, across nearly four degrees of latitude (18° to 21° 40' N.) and three of longitude (87° 30' to 90° 30' W.), to within 120 miles of Cuba, from which it is separated by the Yucatan Channel. It has a mean breadth of about 200 miles, a coast-line of 700 miles, and a total area of 55,400 square miles, with a population in 1882 of 393,000 (Yucatan, 29,570 square miles, population 302,500; Campeche, 25,830 square miles, population 90,500).^[1. Previous estimates assigned 32,650 square miles to Yucatan and 26,100 to Campeche. ]
The coast-line presents a uniform monotonous aspect, being fringed by no islands except Cozumel near the northeast point, and broken by no indentations except the shallow Lake Terminos on the west and the inlets of Ascension, Espiritu Santo, and Chetumal Bays on the east side. But the north coast is skirted by an almost continuous line of low dunes, nearly 200 miles long, enclosing a broad lagoon, which varies in length and depth with the [9:24:758] seasons. Behind the lagoon a bed of coralline and porous limestone rocks, composing nearly the whole tableland of Yucatan, rises continuously southwards in the direction of the Sierra Madre, which, beyond the frontier, traverses the whole of Guatemala and Central America. Geologically, Yucatan thus presents the character of a comparatively recent formation, built up by polypi in shallow waters, and gradually covered with a layer of thin dry soil by the slow weathering of the coral rocks. But the surface is not so uniformly level and monotonous as it appears on most maps; for, although there are scarcely any running streams, it is diversified here and there by a few lacustrine basins, of which Lakes Bacalar and Chicankanah are the largest, as well as by some low isolated hills and ridges in the west, and on the east side by the Sierra Alta, a range of moderate elevation, traversing the whole peninsula from Catoche Point southwards to the neighbourhood of Lake Peten in Guatemala.
There are thus no elevations sufficiently high to intercept the moisture-bearing clouds from the Atlantic, while those from the Pacific are cut off by the Sierra Madre. Hence the climate is necessarily dry, with a deficient and uncertain rainfall, especially in the central and northern districts. Here also the tropical heats are intensified by the neighbourhood of the Gulf Stream, which in its passage through the Yucatan Channel Hows much nearer to the coast of the peninsula than to that of Cuba. Still, the climate, although “hot of the hottest” (Ober), with a temperature ranging from 75° to 98° Fahr. in the shade, is comparatively healthy, owing to its great dryness and to the cool breezes which prevail night and day throughout a great part of the year. The atmosphere is also occasionally purified by the fierce temporales or “northers,” which sweep across the Gulf freely over this open low-lying region. Yellow fever, however, periodically visits the Campeche coast, while ague is endemic in the undrained swampy districts towards the southern frontiers. Like most regions lying entirely within the tropics, Yucatan has two seasons only, which are determined by the alternations not so much of temperature as of atmospheric moisture. The dry season lasts from October to May, the wet season for the rest of the year; the hottest months appear to be March and April, when the heat is increased by the burning of the corn and henequen fields on the plateau.
All the northern districts, as well as the greater part of the Sierra Alta, are destitute of large trees; but the coast-lands on both sides towards Tabasco and British Honduras enjoy a sufficient rainfall to support large forest growths, including the mahogany tree, several valuable cabinet woods, vanilla, logwood, and other dyewoods. Logwood forests fringe all the lagoons and many parts of the seaboard which are flooded during the rainy season. The chief cultivated plants are maize, the sugar-cane, tobacco, cotton, coffee, and especially henequen, the so-called Yucatan hemp or Sisal hemp, which, however, is not a hemp at all, but a true fibre. It is yielded by Agave sisalensis, which grows everywhere, and is used chiefly for the manufacture of coarse sackcloth, cordage, and hammocks. In 1880 as much as 40,000,000 lb of this article, valued at £350,000, was shipped at Progreso. The yearly maize crop is estimated to be worth over £1,000,000, and the whole of the agricultural produce about £2,000,000. But a comparatively small area is under tillage, owing largely to the prevailing system of vast haciendas (estates), which the owners have neither the necessary capital nor the energy to administer. Hence symptoms of decay are everywhere visible; the whole country is “mainly a wilderness” (Ober); and there is probably much less land under cultivation than at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Of the state of Yucatan the capital is Merida (40,000 inhabitants in 1882), which is connected with its port of Progreso, on the northwest coast, by a railway 25 miles long, the only line in the country. The state of Campeche has for its capital the town and seaport of the same name (16,000), on the west coast. Other towns in the peninsula are Tikul, Ixmal, and Valladolid in Yucatan, and the port of El Carmen on an island in Lake Terminos in Campeche. According to the official returns, there are at present (1888) in Yucatan altogether 7 “cities,” 13 towns, and 143 villages, besides 15 abandoned settlements and 333 haciendas. But scarcely any of these places have as many as 10,000 inhabitants, while the population of the great majority falls below 1000.
The contrast is most striking between the picture conveyed by these returns, which also include 62 “ruined cities,” and the state of the country at the time of the Spanish conquest, as revealed by the innumerable remains of towns, cities, temples, palaces, and other public buildings dotted over the plateau, being especially numerous round the now desolate northern and north-eastern shores of the peninsula. The whole of the northern section of Yucatan, which is now destitute alike of running waters, of dense vegetation, and almost of inhabitants, was at that time thickly peopled and full of populous cities remarkable for the great size, splendour, and artistic taste of their public monuments. For Maya, as the land was then called,^[2. Yet the term Yucatan occurs in the very earliest Spanish records, although clearly originating in a misunderstanding, of which several versions are given by Bancroft (Hist. Pacific States, iv. p. 11). It appears even on the very oldest maps, on whieh, however, the country figures as an island, and is spoken of as such in conjunction with Cozumel (“the islands of Yucatan and Cozumel”) in the commission (1526) granted to Francesco Montejo the elder to occupy and settle those lands (op. cit., i. p. 154). ] was the chief centre of the wide-spread Maya-Quiché power and culture, which rivalled, and in some respects excelled, those of the Peruvian Incas and of the Aztecs on the Anahuac plateau. Although the Maya nation had at that time already entered on a period of decadence, it was still strong and vigorous enough to resist the conquistadores for a period of fully twenty years (1527-47), the reduction of this barren region costing “the lives of more Spaniards than had been expended in wresting from the Incas and the Montezumas the wealthiest empires of the western world” (Bancroft).
Wonder has been expressed that such a bleak, arid, and almost streamless land could have ever become the seat of empire and the home of a flourishing civilization. But the absence of rivers on the plateau appears to be due not so much to the deficient rainfall as to the extremely porous nature of the calcareous soil, which absorbs the waters like a sponge and prevents the development of surface streams. Beneath the surface, however, the waters accumulate in such abundance that a sufficient supply may always be had by sinking wells in almost any part of the tableland. What the present inhabitants neglect to do was systematically practised by the former populations, whose aguadas or artificial lakes and underground reservoirs must be reckoned amongst the most remarkable monuments of Maya culture. “Intelligence, much skill in masonry, and much labour were required to construct them. They were paved with several courses of stone laid in cement, and in their bottoms wells or cavities were constructed. More than forty such wells were found in the bottom of one of these aguadas at Galal, which has been repaired and restored to use. In some places long subterranean passages lead down to pools of water, which are used in the dry season. One of these subterranean reservoirs is 450 feet below the surface of the ground, and the passage leading to it is about 1400 feet long” (Baldwin, p. 145). Thus the Mayan, like the Peruvian, the Egyptian, and the Babylonian culture, was based on a well-planned and carefully executed system of waterworks, specially adapted to the peculiar physical conditions of the country.
The monumental remains which must be assigned to the Maya-Quiché, as distinguished from other native civilizations, are spread over a great part of Central America, but are mainly comprised within the triangular space formed by connecting Mitla in Oajaca, Copan in Honduras, and the north coast of Yucatan above Tizimin by three straight lines. But of the “sixty-two ruined cities” of Yucatan proper the most important, or at least the best known and most fully described, are Izamal, Mayapan, Aké, Acanceh, Uxmal, Tikul, and Kabah, all centred in the north-west corner of the peninsula round about Merida, which itself stands on the ruins of Tihu; Chichen-Itza, about midway between Tikul and the east coast; and Labna, Nohbecan, and Potonchan in the Campeche district. Most of these places were described and illustrated by Stephens and Catherwood over forty years ago, and have recently been re-visited and re-described by Μ. Désiré Charnay. The structures especially of Uxmal, Aké, Kabah, and Chichen-Itza rival in magnitude and splendour those of Palenque in Chiapas, of Coban and Lorillard (the “Phantom City ”) in Guatemala, and of Copan in Honduras. There is nothing comparable to them on the Mexican tableland, and in the New World they are surpassed in architectural skill and artistic taste only by the beautiful edifices at Mitla in Oajaca and some of the monuments of Peruvian culture.
Mayapan (“El Pendon de los Mayas,” or “Banner City of the Maya Nation ”) was already in ruins at the time of the conquest, having been overthrown during a general revolt of the feudatory states about a century before that period.^[3. Or, according to other interpretations of the confused national traditions, by the people of Chichen-Itza some three centuries before the arrival of the Spaniards. ] Yet its ruins, overgrown with vegetation, still cover a considerable space, and include a huge artificial mound which from a distance looks like a wooded hill. But Uxmal stands altogether unrivalled for the magnitude of its buildings, the richness of its sculptured façades, and the almost classic beauty of its statuary. Conspicuous amongst its edifices are the so-called “nunnery” and the famous Casa del Gobernador or governor’s palace, the latter with a wonderful frieze, 325 feet long, “having a row of colossal heads divided in panels, filled alternately with grecques in high relief” (Charnay). The nunnery, which contained eighty-eight compartments of all sizes, forms a vast quadrangle[9:24:759], with one front 280 feet long and enclosing a court 258 by 214 feet. Here Dr Le Plongeon discovered in 1881 a surprisingly beautiful statue, surpassing anything of the kind ever found in Central America. But this object he again carefully hid away to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Mexican authorities, who had seized another remarkable statue previously brought to light by this industrious explorer (Ober).
Conspicuous amongst the crumbling monuments of Aké, which lies ten leagues east of Merida, is a huge pyramid, with an immense flight of steps, presenting some extraordinary features different from anything elsewhere discovered in Yucatan. This strange monument is surmounted by thirty-six pillars (twenty-nine still standing), each 4 feet square and from 14 to 16 feet high, disposed in three parallel rows 10 feet apart, the whole supported by a platform 212 feet by 46 and approached by steps from 4½ to 6½ feet long and from 1 to 1½ feet high. At Izamal, a few miles east of Aké, stands another great pyramid, with a base of nearly 650 feet, besides three others, and a colossal head 13 feet high, not, however, a monolith, but built up of rough stones coated with mortar. But the gigantic face described and reproduced by Stephens had disappeared at the time of Charnay’s visit to Izamal.
To this explorer we are indebted for the first detailed account of the wonderful remains of Chichen - Itza, which include another nunnery, a tennis-court, several temples, and other buildings profusely embellished with rich friezes, statues, pillars, reliefs, and the like, the whole grouped round a central pyramid of great size, known as the Castillo, from the beautiful structure still standing on its summit. Chichen-Itza, which was certainly inhabited at the time of the conquest, was the capital of the Itzaes, one of the most powerful Maya nations, who appear to have afterwards migrated southwards to the neighbourhood of Lake Peten, where tribes of this name are still found. They constituted one of the eighteen semi-independent Maya states, whose incessant internecine wars at last brought about the dismemberment of the once potent theocratic empire of Xibalba (Palenque ?) and the destruction of the Maya civilization.
Scarcely less important than those of Chichen-Itza are the monuments of Kabah, which lies about 12 miles south of Uxmal. The two places were formerly connected by a plastered causeway, traces of which are still visible, and Kabah must have been a very large city, for its ruins are scattered over a considerable area. Amongst them are comprised lofty pyramids, vast terraces, and sumptuous palaces or temples, with elaborate ornamentation, sometimes almost completely disguising the architectural features of the edifices.^[4. On one of the palaces “two salient cornices form a frame to immense friezes which in their details would compare favourably with our proudest monuments" (Charnay). On others are sculptured some remarkable basreliefs, which represent Maya warriors receiving the swords of kneeling Aztec captives, the nationalities of the figures being clearly identified by their respective costumes. The significance of records of this sort has either been altogether overlooked or else strangely misinterpreted by most writers on Central-American antiquities. ] Charnay mentions “triumphal arches,” but adds that he sought in vain for the unique specimen of this kind of monument in America which is mentioned and figured by Stephens, and which bears such a striking resemblance to the triumphal arches of the Boman type. Many other remains have either disappeared or crumbled away almost beyond recognition since they were first sketched by Catherwood.^[5. In 1841 Stephens was assured by the cura of Santa Cruz del Quiché that the palaces of that place, then in a dilapidated state, were quite perfect thirty years before, and that the now deserted city of Utatlan in the province of Vera Paz was then almost as perfect as when its inhabitants had abandoned it Uo had himself walked in its silent streets amid its colossal buildings, whieh were as entire as those of Santa Cruz. ] But, on the other hand, numerous buried cities and monuments probably still remain concealed amid the rank tropical vegetation, especially in the almost unknown territory of the unreduced Lacandons and Itzaes towards the Guatemala frontier. But enough has already been surveyed fully to justify Maudslay’s general remark, that Yucatan is thickly covered with the ruins of great buildings "even superior in some respects to those found in other parts of Central America.”
Like those of Palenque, Lorillard Town, Tikul, and Copan, many of these buildings are covered with inscriptions, the key to the deciphering of which has not yet been discovered. Notwithstanding certain divergences, seen especially at Lorillard, all belong obviously to the same writing system. But whether that system is purely ideographic, phonetic, or intermediate cannot be asserted with any certainty, although Holden, who has attacked the problem from a fresh standpoint, declares emphatically that they are not phonetic, “except in so far as their rebus character may make them in a sense phonetic.” He claims by his system to have fixed the order in which the inscriptions are to be read (in lines left to right, in columns vertically downwards), and fancies he has determined the meaning of three characters representing Maya divinities. But Holden is ignorant of the Maya-Quiché language, of which a few manuscripts have been rescued from the fury of the early Spanish iconoclasts. One of these documents, the Popol-Vuh, written or copied about 1558 from an older Quiché book, has been edited and even translated by Brasseur de Bourbourg. This uncritical writer makes use of a so-called Maya-Quiché alphabet preserved by Diego de Landa, first bishop of Yucatan, in his Relacion or history of the Mayas. But the alphabet in question is admittedly extremely defective and inadequate to interpret the native writings, and has even been pronounced “a Spanish fabrication” by Dr Valentini,^[6. In a paper read before the American Antiquarian Society, 28th April 1880. ] a view which Holden appears to endorse. The puzzle thus remains still unsolved, and no safe inference can be drawn beyond the fact that the inscriptions and manuscripts are composed in a highly conventional form of writing, and probably in more than one Maya-Quiché dialect.
Other difficult questions connected with the origin and antiquity of the Maya culture, and the nature of its relations to that of Mexico, will be found discussed under Mexico (q.v.). But, since that article was written, fresh materials have been collected and published which help to throw some further light on these obscure subjects. Unfortunately Μ. Charnay, who since the time of Stephens and Catherwood has undoubtedly contributed most to our knowledge of the Central-American remains, has revived in an exaggerated form the old views of Morelet, Orozco y Berra, and others regarding the Toltec origin of all these monuments. This observer sees everywhere the clearest evidences, not merely of Toltec influences, which are obvious enough, but of the Toltec institutions themselves, of the Toltec religion, architecture, and civilization, to the exclusion of all others in Central America. He even boldly traces on the map the lines of a twofold Toltec migration, from Tula along the Atlantic and from Toluca along the Pacific side, to their junction at Copan in Honduras, some few centuries before the discovery of the New World. But our faith in the soundness of these views is greatly shaken when we find Μ. Charnay identifying the Toltecs themselves somewhat wildly with Malays, Indo-Chinese, and other Asiatic races. Some of the present populations of Yucatan are even pronounced to be “a cross between the Malay and the Chinese,” and all the exploded theories are thus revived of an Asiatic origin of the civilized inhabitants of the New World and of their cultures. But, as Ober well remarks, the evidence is cumulative in favour of the independent evolution of these cultures. Late contact,—that is, contact since the remote Stone Age,—with the inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere has been either of the most casual nature or else as shadowy as the Atlantis itself, which is seriously referred to in this connexion by otherwise sane writers, but which was obviously as pure an invention of Plato as the Utopia was of Sir Thomas More.
An essential condition of the Toltec theory is the assumed recent, or comparatively recent, date of all the Central-American monuments, and Charnay has certainly dispelled the extravagant ideas at one time prevalent regarding the hoary antiquity of some of these remains. He has shown in particular that no argument in favour of great age can be drawn from the size of the trees by which many of them are overgrown. By actual experiment ho has proved that the concentric circles of these trees correspond, not to so many years, as had been supposed, but rather to so many months, if not even to shorter periods of growth. Thus collapse the extravagant estimates of 2000 years (Waldeck) or 1700 (Lorainzar) assigned to the buildings on this assumption. At the same time some of the cities were already forgotten ruins at the time of the conquest, and many of the structures date evidently back to a period prior to the Toltec migrations southwards. The bas-reliefs of Kabah also clearly show that these Toltecs, probably of Nahua stock and closely related to the Aztecs, already found the land occupied by a civilized people, able to record on stone monuments their triumphs over the northern invaders. Some of these monuments themselves equal, if not surpass, in artistic taste and workmanship anything the Toltec builders are known to have produced on the Anahuac plateau. They also present many distinctive features, especially in their design and decorative parts, while the inscriptions are altogether different from those of the Aztecs as seen in extant manuscripts. The conclusion seems inevitable that the Maya-Quiché culture was an independent growth, brought in later times under Nahua influences, the relations being perhaps somewhat analogous to those existing between the Graeco-Bactrian and Indian or the Moorish and Spanish in the Old World.
At the time of the conquest a great part of Central America was found to be occupied, as it still is, by peoples related, at least in speech, to the Maya inhabitants of Yucatan. The numerous branches of this widespread family ranged from Tamaulipas (about the Tropic of Cancer) southwards to north Honduras and San Salvador (14° N. lat.). But the chief divisions were the Mayas of Yucatan and the Quichés of Guatemala, whence the compound term Maya-Quiché collectively applied to the whole race. Owing partly to the uncertainty of their mutual affinities, but mainly to tho confusing and inconsistent nomenclature of the early Spanish and later writers, the classification of the various Maya-Quiché nations presents serious difficulties, some of which have not yet been overcome. In the subjoined scheme are embodied the results of the researches of De Bourbourg, Berendt, Stoll, and others in this intricate branch of ethnology :—
[9:24:760]
Maya Group.— Huasteca, Vera Cruz and Tamaulipas; Totomac (?), ^[7. Although Totonac is grouped by Brinton and others in this family, Gatschet is inclined to regard it as an independent stock language (Réplique à Mr D. G. Brinton, Paris, 1888, p. 8). ] north part of Vera Cruz; Maya proper, throughout Yucatan; Chol (Cholti, Colchi), between the Salinas and Mondaguas rivers, Guatemala; Mopan, north of the Chois; Chontal, Tabasco, distinct from the Nicaraguan Chontales; Tzental (Cendal), Ocosingo district, Chiapas; Tzotzil (Zotzil, Zotzlem), San Cristobal, Chiapas; Chañabal, Comitan district, Chiapas.
Quiché Group.— Cakchiquel (Kacchikil), Tecpan to Sta Lucia and the Pacific; Tzutujil (Sotojil, Zutuhil), Aitlan district, Guatemala; Quiché proper (Kiché, Utatlica), Cunen and Rabinal districts, and thence south-west to the Pacific, Guatemala; Uspanteca, San Miguel Uspantan, Guatemala.
Poconchi Group.— Poconchi proper (Pokomchi, Pacomchi), Tactic district, Guatemala; Quekchi (Caechi, Aquacateca), Coban district, Guatemala; Chorti (Lenguaapay), Zacapa and Chichimula, and thence eastwards to Honduras; Pokomam, Jalapa, and thence to San Salvador.
Mame Group.— Marne proper (Mem, Zakloh-pakap), throughout south-western Guatemala; Ixil, Cotzal district, Guatemala; Aguacatecas (Sinca, Xinca), throughout south-eastern Guatemala; Alagiulac (?), San Cristobal, Chiapas.
Yucatan is still almost entirely inhabited by the same Maya race that was found in possession of the land at the time of the discovery. About five-sixths of the population are of nearly pure Maya stock and speech, the Spanish and mestizo elements being mostly confined to the large towns. The mestizos are said to be the handsomest on the continent, while the full-blood natives are perhaps the least characteristic of all the aboriginal populations. They have the coarse black and straight hair, the arched nose, and the reddish-brown complexion common to most of the primitive inhabitants of America. But they can be readily distinguished from all of them by their regular features, low cheek-bones, small mouth and ears, straight jaws, frank expression, and a certain air of refinement betraying descent from a highly cultured people. “It would be difficult,” says Charnay, “to find among the rural classes of Europe men of a better build, or with more intelligent and open countenances.” Although generally peaceful, patient under oppression, and even somewhat indolent, their history since the conquest (1547) has not been wholly uneventful. After more than two centuries of passive resistance, there was a general revolt in 1761, brought about by the intolerable misrule of the Spanish administration. The declaration of independence (1821) was followed in 1824 by the union with the Mexican confederacy, which continued without interruption till 1840. In that year an independent republic was set up in Yucatan, which, however, was suppressed in 1843. Then came the general uprising of the natives in 1846, when Mexico was engaged in a disastrous war with the United States. To quell the revolt, the ruling classes were obliged to call in the aid of the Mexicans (1847-53), whereby the peninsula again lost its autonomy, and was divided (1861) into the two federal states of Yucatan and Campeche. But the rebellion was not entirely suppressed, and many of the natives, withdrawing eastwards to the coast-lands beyond the Sierra Alta, have hitherto defied all the efforts of the authorities to reduce them.
Bibliography.—D. L. Cogolludo, Historia de Yucathan, Madrid, 1G88; Diego de Landa, Relacion de las Cosas de Yucatan, ed. by Br. de Bourbourg, Paris, 1864; Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. des Nations Civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique Centrale, Paris, 1857-59, and Études sur le Système Graphique et la Langue des Mayas, Paris, 1869-70; Lord Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, London, 1831-48 (vols. ii. and iii.); H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, New York, 1875, and Hist. of the Pacific States (vols. iv. and v.), San Francisco and London, 1882-87; J. L. Stephens, Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, new edition, New York, 1858; E. G. Squier, Travels in Central America, New York, 1853, and Notes on Central America, New York, 1855; J. D. Baldwin, Ancient America, New York, 1872; Marquis de Nadaillac, Prehistoric America, London, 1885; Désiré Charnay, The Ancient Cities of the New World, London, 1887; F. A. Ober, Travels in Mexico (bk. i., Yucatan), Boston, 1884; A. P. Maudslay, “Exploration, &c., of Copan,” in Proc. Rot/. Geogr. Soc., September, 1886; E. S. Holden, “Studies in Central-American Picture-Writing,” in Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, 1879-80. (A. H. K.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-076001-0809m | YUCCA,^[1. A Spanish word meaning “bayonet.” ] a genus of the order Liliaceae, the species of which are remarkable for their stately appearance and generally magnificent inflorescence. They occur in greatest frequency in Mexico and the south-western States of the American Union, extending also into Central America, and occurring in such numbers in some places as to form “straggling forests.” They have a woody or fibrous stem, sometimes short, and in other cases, even in the same species, attaining a height of 15 to 20 feet, and branching at the top into a series of forks. The leaves are crowded in tufts at the ends of the stem or branches and are generally stiff and sword-shaped, with a sharp point, sometimes flaccid and in other cases fibrous at the edges. The numerous flowers are usually white, bell-shaped, and pendulous, and are borne in much-branched terminal panicles. Each flower consists of a perianth of six regular pieces, as many hypogynous stamens, with dilated filaments, bearing relatively small anthers. The three-celled ovary is surmounted by a short thick style, dividing above into three stigmas, and ripens into a succulent berry in some of the species, and into a dry three-valved capsule in others. The flowers are fertilized by the agency of moths.
A coarse fibre is obtained by the Mexicans from the stem and foliage, which they utilize for cordage. The succulent fruits, which resemble small bananas, are cooked as an article of diet; and the roots contain a saponaceous matter used in place of soap.
Most of the species are hardy in Great Britain, and their striking appearance renders them attractive in gardens even when not in flower. Their rigid foliage, invested by thick epidermis, also enables them to resist the noxious air of towns better than most plants. A popular name for the plant is “Adam’s needle.” The species which split up at the margins of their leaves into filaments are called “Eve’s thread.” | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-076002-0809m | YUN-NAN. See China, vol. v. p. 640. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-076003-0809m | YUN-NAN FU, the capital of the Chinese province of Yun-nan, is situated in 25° 6' N. lat. and 102° 52' E. long. Originally the district surrounding Yun-nan Fu was known as the “land of the southern barbarians.” 1 The city, which under different dynasties has borne different names, is situated on a plain, and is surrounded by well-fortified walls, 6½ miles in circuit. Marco Polo describes it, under the name of Yachi, as “a very great and noble city, in which are numerous merchants and craftsmen. The people are of sundry kinds, for there are not only Saracens and idolaters but also a few Nestorian Christians. They have wheat and rice in plenty. . . . Their money is . . . certain white porcelain shells that are found in the sea.” For many years Mahommedans have been very numerous in the city and neighbourhood; and in 1855 a Mahommedan rising took place within the city. Yun-nan Fu has a prosperous and busy aspect: the shops are large and well supplied with native silken goods, saddlery, &c., while English cotton, Russian cloths, and raw cotton from Burmah constitute the main foreign merchandise. Employment for large numbers of workpeople is found in the copper factories. A local mint at Yun-nan Fu issued annually 101,000,000 cash before the outbreak of the rebellion in 1855. The population of the city is estimated at about 200,000. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-076004-0809m | YVETOT, a town of France, chef-lieu of an arrondissement in the department of Seine-Inférieure, stands on the plateau of Caux, 24 miles north-west of Rouen on the railway to Havre, and is chiefly known from Béranger’s famous song. Calicoes, tickings, Siamese, rouennerie cotton, reps, and handkerchiefs are made here, as in most places in the department, and a trade is carried on in wool. The church is ugly, but contains a marble altar from the Carthusian monastery at Rouen, some fine woodwork from the abbey of St Wandrille, and an elegant pulpit. The remains of a Bernardine monastery are occupied in part by the court and jail. The hospital and seminary are both modern. The population was 7625 (commune 8397) in 1881 and 7333 (commune 7972) in 1886.
From the 15th till the middle of the 16th century the lords of Yvetot bore the title of king, and their lands were exempt from all service to the French crown. The town was occupied during the Hundred Years’ War by Henry V. of England, and afterwards retaken by Charles VII. of France. On 8th May 1592 Henry IV. defeated here the troops of the League under the duke of Parma. A Bernardine monastery was founded at Yvetot in 1650, and suppressed in 1781. In 1658 part of the town was destroyed by fire. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-076101-0810m | Z
Z, the last letter of our alphabet, has fallen away from its old place in the Phoenician and Greek alphabets. In these it stood seventh, probably with the value of dz or zd. In shape it was Ӏ in all the older writings both of the Ionian and the Euboean type. Later it became Z, as we have it, by a natural and convenient change. But I is the older Italian as well as the Greek form; it remained so in Oscan; in Etruscan and Umbrian the cross strokes were brought near together, but the upright line remained. The Latin alphabet, however, dropped the symbol, having apparently no need of it; it appears on an old coin of Cosa (Carpus, i. 14), unless the letter there be only a modified s . Later, in the 1st century b.c., the letter in the form Z was re-introduced, where we have it, to represent more accurately the sound of z in words borrowed from the Greek, in which alone it appears; ss (or initial s ) had previously been employed for this purpose. The original place of the letter had been occupied in the meantime by G, the Latin modified form of C (see under G), so Z had to take the lowest place together with Y, which had been also borrowed from Greece for a similar purpose.
The exact value of zeta in Greek has been much discussed (see Blass, Aussprache des Griechischen, p. 95). That it was a double sound—not French z (the voiced sibilant corresponding to the voiceless s )—seems clear from Aristotle’s statement that ξ, ψ, and ζ were all σ υμϕώvιαι , and from its power of lengthening a previous short vowel in scanning. The arguments, however, for the dz or the zd value are about evenly balanced, and it is not improbable that it may have had both. In Latin the value was doubtless that of the Greek z.
In Old English z hardly occurs; when it does it is in borrowed names with the value of ts, as in Betzaida, Zabulon. It was introduced in order to represent French z in words borrowed from France, as zeal, zone (see article S). But it is used in only a very small number of the words where the sound occurs: we still adhere to the usage of our forefathers and employ s for the s -sound and the z -sound alike, indeed rather inclining to use s for z , and to differentiate s by doubling the symbol: compare his (i.e., hiz) and hiss (i.e, his). In German z represents ts, the sound into which Teutonic t passed in High German— e.g., vaherz, our “heart.” It was also used formerly, either alone or in combination with s, to denote the voiceless sibilant when final: thus the conjunction dass, which is nothing but the neuter pronoun das, was formerly written daz, and is sometimes even now written dasz. In French the Latin z became the voiced sibilant; and a similar process has taken place in modern Greek. In French, however, the final sound must once have been stronger— e.g., in fils (filius), later fiz, and still later fis (as it is still pronounced), which passed into England in the form Fitz in proper names. Still plainer is the evidence of verbal forms like avez = avets = habetis.
For the history of the English variant 3 for z , see article Y. (J. P.) | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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kp-eb0924-076102-0810m | ZAANDAM, Zaanredam, or Saardam, a village of Holland, in the province of North Holland, 5 miles by rail to the north-west of Amsterdam, at the confluence of the Zaan with the Y. The houses are mostly of wood, painted white or green, and the place shares with the other villages of North Holland a high reputation for neatness and cleanliness. In the immediate neighbourhood are a very large number of windmills, including corn, paper, saw, coffee, snuff, and other mills. Peter the Great of Russia wrought at Zaandam as a ship-carpenter for a short time in 1697, and the hut in which he is said to have lived is still shown and much visited. Some shipbuilding is still carried on. The population in 1887 was 14,351. | ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, NINTH EDITION: A MACHINE-READABLE TEXT
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