withstanding the scene of busy life which it presents, on
account of the want of regularity in the place, and the
mean appearance of the streets, which are generally
narrow and often crooked: the few handsome public and
private edifices are scattered over the whole city. There
are seven wooden bridges over the Pregel. The castle,
or royal palace, originally built, as we have said, in 1255,
has been gradually altered, enlarged, and beautified till
it has obtained its present form. The most interesting parts
of it are the church, the Muscovite hall 274 feet long and 59
wide, without pillars, and the tower 240 feet high (278 above
the Pregel), from the top of which there is a fine prospect of
the city and environs. The most remarkable building is
the cathedral, founded in 1332. It has a fine organ with
5000 pipes, many excellent paintings by Lucas Cranach
and others; the Wallemodt Library, in which are several
autograph letters from Luther to Catherine Bora, and the
original of the summons and the safe conduct which Luther
received to appear at the diet at Worms. Among the
numerous public institutions is the university, founded by
Duke Albert in 1544. It has now 27 ordinary and 11 ex-
traordinary professors, and 18 private lecturers, in all 56, and
about 450 students. With the university are combined the
most important scientific institutions, such as a theological
seminary (in two divisions), one philological, one historical,
one homiletic, one Polish, one Lithuanian seminary, a library
of 6000 volumes, a botanic garden (founded in 1809, with
between 5000 and 6000 species of plants), and an observatory,
which has of late years attained great celebrity from the
astronomical observations of Professor Bessel. There are
likewise three gymnasia, and very numerous schools, with
many charitable institutions. Königsberg has many manu-
factories, but not on an extensive scale, of woollen, linen,
silk, cloth, leather, tobacco, and sugar; it has celebrated
breweries and brandy distilleries, &c. Its geographical
position has long made it an important place of trade. Its
most flourishing period was from 1783 to 1789, when nearly
2000 ships arrived and as many left the port every year.
Its most unfortunate period was between 1823 and 1826,
when the number of arrivals and departures was less than
300 in a year. Its commerce has since revived a little.
The chief trade is in corn; beer, flax, hemp, tallow and wax,
bristles, and quills are likewise exported. Königsberg, ac-
cording to the census of 1837, contained 64,200 inhabitants.
KOOBA. [GEORGIA, p. 176.]

KOODOO. [ANTELOPE, vol. ii., p. 78.]
KOOM. [PERSIA.]

KORAN. [MOHAMMED]

6

KORAY, ADEIMANTOS, born at Smyrna in 1748, of a family from Chios, studied first at Smyrna, and afterwards at Montpellier, where he took his degree as doctor of medicine, and settled in France. He wrote several works on medicine, and published French translations of the treatise of Hippocrates On Air, Water, and Situation,' with copious notes, and of the Characters' of Theophrastus. In 1801 ne translated into modern Greek Beccaria's treatise On Crimes and Punishments,' which he dedicated to the then newly constituted republic of the Ionian Islands. He afterwards wrote in French a memoir, De l'Etat Actuel de la Civilization en Grèce,' 1803, which, being translated into modern Greek, answered the double purpose of making the people of Western Europe acquainted with the moral and intellectual condition of his countrymen, and of making the Greeks acquainted with it themselves. Koray also undertook to edit a series of antient Greek writers, under the title of the Hellenic Library.' He began with the Orations of Isocrates,' 2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1807, which he accompanied with interesting prolegomena and explanatory notes. He afterwards edited in succession the Lives of Plutarch,' the Histories of Ælian,' the fragments of Heraclides and of Nicolaus Damascenus, the fables of sop, Strabo, the first four books of the Iliad, and the Politic of Aristotle.'

The reputation of Koray attracted many young Greeks to him, who profited by his conversation and instruction. Although long absent from his native country he felt to the last the most lively interest in her fate. He foresaw that a struggle was approaching, and he wished the minds of the Greeks to be prepared for it. He encouraged particularly the diffusion of education, the formation of new schools in Greece, and he furnished directions for the method and course of studies. He also contributed to fix the rules and

orthography of the modern Greek, in which he took a middle path between the system of Neophytus Doukas, which Koray stigmatized with the name of macaronic,' and that of Christopoulos, which affected to write the modern Greek exactly as it is spoken. Koray wished to purify the language by discarding the numerous Italianisms, Gallicisms, and Germanisms, which had been introduced into it, and by substituting old Greek words, at the same time avoiding the affectation of too great a purism or classic pedantry. (Rizo, Cours de Littérature Grecque Moderne, 1827.)

Koray died at Paris a few years ago, having had the satisfaction of seeing the struggle in which his countrymen had engaged rewarded by success.

KORDOFAN, or KORDUFAN, a country in the northeastern parts of Africa, south of Nubia, extends from about 15° 20' to 10° N. lat., and from 28° to 32° E. long. It is divided from Dar-fur, which lies to the west, and from Nubia, which lies farther north, by deserts, in which water occurs only at a few places, and not in all seasons. On the east it extends to the Bahr el Abiad, or western branch of the Nile, which divides it from Sennaar. Its southern boundary-line is unknown, and stated to be formed by extensive forests covering the northern declivity of the Deir or Tuggala Mountains, and inhabited by negroes. The southern districts, as far north as 120 N. lat., have a broken surface, and the hills rise in some parts to a considerable height. This seems to be the best part of the country, as it contains many springs and wells, which always yield an abundance of drinkable water. Gold-dust also is collected in several places; and iron-ore is abundant and is worked. The country north of 12° N. lat. may be considered as an elevated and mostly level plain, on which several isolated groups of hills rise at considerable distances from one another. These hills are the only places which are inhabited, because it is only in their neighbourhood that wells are found which yield water all the year round. Certain wandering tribes visit some depressions in the plain, where, in the rainy season, temporary lakes are formed, which preserve the water during the greater part of the year. The plain itself is partly covered with grass and partly with low thorny bushes; in a few places forest trees occur, among which is the baobab, or Adansonia. In the rainy season, which lasts from April to September, the plain is partly covered with water, and affords pasture for numer ous herds of cattle. In the dry season it is changed into a desert. No river traverses this country, with the exception of the Bahr el Abiad, which constitutes its eastern boundary.

Agriculture does not extend beyond the neighbourhood of the inhabited places. The principal objects of cultiva tion are two kinds of millet, called durrha and doghen, and of simsim or sessamum. In a few places wheat and barley are grown. The wandering tribes of the Beduin Arabs have herds of cattle, horses, and camels. The horses are of an excellent breed, and the cattle have a hunch of fat. The tribes of negroes inhabiting the southern hilly country keep a great number of cattle, sheep, and goats, but few camels and horses. Among the wild animals Rüppell mentions elephants, giraffes, and several kinds of antelopes.

Kordofan is inhabited by three races of men: the negroes, or Nuba; the Dongolawi, or settlers from Dongola; and the Beduin Arabs. The first, who may be considered as the native inhabitants, are exclusively in possession of the southern hilly country, but a great number of them are settled on the plain, where they are agriculturists. The Dongolawi are merchants, and settled in those places where the caravans pass. They have introduced horticulture and artificial irrigation into Kordofan; and their orchards contain date-trees. The different tribes of the Beduin Arabs wander about in the plain; they cultivate however a good deal of doghen for their own consumption. They are known under the name of Bakara Arabs.

to

Kordofan was subject to the sovereign of Sennaar up the beginning of the present century. It was then taken from him by the king of Dar-fur, in whose possession it remained to the year 1820, when it was conquered by the arms of Mehemet Ali, Pasha of Egypt. At the time when the country was under the king of Dar-fur, Obeid, its capital, was a considerable town, and regular caravans re sorted to it for slaves, ivory, gold-dust, gum arabic, ostrich feathers, tamarinds, and honey. But on the occupation of the Egyptian Turks the town was destroyed, and Rüppell

mentions a place, Shabun, which is a kind of entrepôt for Great in Zriny,' is boldly drawn. He also evinces a know

Dr. Buckland, Von Meyer, &c., for the occurrence of bones of extinct quadrupeds (hyæna, felis, elephant, rhinoceros, bear, reindeer, &c.) in the fissures and cavities of the limestone and gypsum which occur in that district. Generally, the bones of extinct quadrupeds lie in large cavities of the gypsum, while the fissures therein often contain remains of living races. Bones of men also occur, but apparently they are of later date than those which accompany the perished races of hyæna, felis, elephant, and rhinoceros. (Meyer, Palaeologica, p. 458.

KOSTROMA. [COSTROMA.]

'The Stranger' and 'The Indians in England,' it is only necessary to enumerate 'Lovers' Vows' (Der Strassenraüber aus Kindersliebe), Pizarro' (Die Spanier in Peru), 'The Virgin of the Sun,' and 'Benyowski. Unfortunately for a permanent reputation, he created too great a sensation at the time of his writing; the public were at first delighted, and afterwards surfeited by his exaggerated expressions, his forced situations, and maudlin sentimentality. A reaction accordingly has taken place, and he is now as much despised as he was formerly overrated, and far more so than he merits. It is not fair to criticise him in a merely liteFERDI-rary point of view: he was an actual working writer for the stage, and his knowledge of dramatic construction and of stage effect must call forth the approbation of every qualified judge. In his characters he is very unequal: some of them are absolute impossibilities, uttering nothing but the mest forced and unmeaning sentiments, while occasionally an exquisite sketch may be found; and it would not be difficult to select from his works scenes of the deepest pathos. He wrote too much. There is a great difference between a writer who gives his thoughts in a dramatic form, and an author who goes on constructing plays whether he has new thoughts or not; and indeed this is the difference between the dramatist, in the high sense of the word, and the mere playwright, to which latter character Kotzebue too frequently approximated. Goethe reckoned as the best of his plays Die beiden Klingsberg' (The Two Klingsbergs), a genteel comedy of great merit, but little known in this | country.

Kotzebue's dramas had rather an unfortunate effect on the estimation of German literature in England. The wits of the Anti-Jacobin' attacked him with great and often wellmerited severity, but they mixed up with his works the productions of Goethe and Schiller, and thus writers of the most unequal rank were classed together under the name of the German School.' Now that a real knowledge of German literature is spreading, a critic would be ashamed to trust to a mere translation (as did the writers of the 'AntiJacobin'); and any attempt to classify so second-rate a writer as Kotzebue with the noble Schilier and the great Goethe would be treated with contempt, excepting where some of the minor and inferior works of the latter might warrant a comparison.

KOTZEBUE, AUGUST FRIEDRICH NAND VON, was born at Weimar in the year 1761. In his sixth year he made attempts at poetical composition, and his interest for theatrical matters was excited by the performances of a company of players at Weimar. At the Gymnasium he was instructed by Musäus, the celebrated author of the Volksmährchen' (Popular Tales); and when he was sixteen years of age he went to the University of Jena, where an amateur theatre increased his love for the drama. He studied the law, but at the same time composed slight theatrical pieces. In 1781, at the instance of the Prussian ambassador at the Russian court, he went to Petersburg, and was kindly received by the emperor, who raised him to the rank of nobility, and made him president of the government of Esthonia. While at Reval he wrote several favourite works, and among them his well-known pieces Die Indianer in England' (The Indians in England), which has been translated into English, and 'Menschenhass und Reue' (Misanthropy and Repentance), well known in this country under the title of The Stranger.' He travelled in 1790 to Pyrmont, and after the death of his wife visited Paris, but returned to Esthonia in 1795, where he wrote above twenty dramas. In 1798 he went to Vienna as poet to the Court Theatre, but gave up that place in two years, and received a yearly pension of 1000 crowns. He had scarcely arrived in Russia, to which country he had returned, when, without knowing the cause, he was arrested and sent to Siberia. A transla- | tion made by a young Russian of a paltry little piece by Kotzebue, called 'Der Leibkutscher Peters des Grossen' (The Body-Coachman of Peter the Great), so delighted the emperor Paul that he was recalled from banishment. After the death of this emperor, he went to Weimar, and thence to Jena. Some disagreement with Goethe caused him to remove to Berlin, where he edited the periodical Der | Freimüthige' (The Free-Humoured).* About the same time he commenced his 'Almanach dramatischer Spiele,' an annual much in the style of those in England, though the plates are of an humbler character, and the literary part is exclusively dramatic. His Recollections' of Paris, of Rome, and of Naples, and his 'Early History of Prussia,' appear to have added little to his reputation. The events | of the year 1806 caused him to fly from Prussia to Russia, where in his writings he unceasingly attacked the emperor Napoleon and the French. His political expressions at KRAME'RIA TRÌANDRA, or RHATANY, is a this time raised him to importance, and the turn of affairs small low-lying undershrub, growing on the dry projecting in 1813, and the unpopularity of the French, procured him parts of the mountains of Peru, near Huanaco, &c. The the editorship of a Russian-Prussian paper. In 1814 he native name is Rhatanhia. The root, which is the officinal went as Russian consul-general to Königsberg, where he part, is from four to eight inches long, and from half an wrote several little plays, and an indifferent history of Ger- inch to two inches thick, with knotty but not strong ramimany. In 1817, after having again visited Petersburg, he fications, and is very variable in shape. The bark is thin, was despatched to Germany by the emperor of Russia, with uneven, and easily separates from the woody part. The root a large salary, to watch the state of literature and public is heavy, and devoid of odour; but the taste, especially of opinion, and to communicate all that he could learn. He the bark, is strongly astringent and bitter, yet not disat the same time edited a weekly literary paper, but the agreeable. Iodine turns it black. According to the auaGerman people had at last become disgusted with his scoff-lysis of Gmelin, it contains much tannin, with saccharine ing at everything like liberal opinions. His writings were levelled against all liberal opinions, and against the freedom of the press. He sneered at every expression of the popular wish for a constitutional government. He held up the state of Europe before the French Revolution as the perfection of happiness; till at last he roused the indignation of Sand, a student and political enthusiast, who, considering him an enemy to liberty, assassinated him in 1819. Kotzebue's fame rests almost entirely on his dramas, which are nearly 100 in number, and of the most various degrees of merit. The best of them (excepting The Two Klingsbergs') have been translated into English. Besides

a better. Free-thinker would convey a religious idea, whereas merely an The Free-Humoured' is not a very good expression, but it is hard to find

open free person is intended. The book is a little weekly publication, every number of which is adorned with a rude cut of Ulrich von Hütten.

|

KOTZEBUE, OTTO VON, captain in the Russian marines, was son of the above. In the year 1814 he set out on a voyage round the world, which he completed in 1818, and of which he published an account three years afterwards. He had previously gone round the world as a midshipman under Krusenstern. In 1824 he undertook a third voyage as captain of an imperial man-of-war, when he dis covered two islands in the South Sea, and returned in 1826. An account of this voyage was published in London, by Kotzebue's companion, Dr. Eschholz, and by himself in St. Petersburg.

KOULI-KHAN. [NADIR SHAH.]

in

and mucilaginous matter, woody fibre, and salts. Accord
ing to Peschier, it contains krameric acid. This root, from
which, in Peru, an extract is formed, is a mild, easily assi
milated, astringent medicine, possessed of great power
passive bloody or mucous discharges; and also in weak-
ness of the digestive organs, muscular debility, and even in
intermittent and putrid fevers.
The powder forms, along
with charcoal, an excellent tooth-powder; and an infusion
is used as a gargle and wash.

KRAMERIA CEÆ, a small natural order of Polypetalous Exogenous plants, by most botanists referred to Polyga lacea, but apparently distinct in having stamens separate from the petals, which are disjoined, and all the There are from four to five irregular sepals; four or five parts of the flower highly irregular and unsymmetrical. very irregular petals; from one to four unequal bypogynous

stamens, not bearing any obvious relation to the other parts; and a 1-celled or incompletely 2-celled leathery round fruit, covered with hooked prickles, and containing but one seed. The leaves are alternate, simple, ard without stipules. The only remarkable product of the order is rhatany root. [KRAMERIA TRIANDRA.]

Krameriacea.

he had examined. In this cave, whose cavity is nearly equal to the interior of a large church, there are hundreds of cartloads of black animal dust entirely covering the whole floor, to a depth which must average at least six feet, and which, if we multiply this depth by the length and breadth of the cavern, will be found to exceed 5000 cubic feet. Buckland observes, 'Many hundred, I may say thousand, individuals must have contributed their remains to make up this appalling mass of the dust of death.' (Reliq. Diluviance, p. 138.)

Dr.

The whole of this mass has been again and again dug over in search of teeth and bones, which it still contains abundantly, although in broken fragments. The bones are of a black, or, more properly speaking, dark umber colour throughout, and many of them readily crumble under the finger into a soft dark powder resembling mummy powder, and are of the same nature as the black earth in which they are imbedded. (Reliquiae Diluviance.)

KUMAON, a district forming part of the British territory in Northern Hindustan, comprehending an area of 7000 square miles, includes the country between the Ganges and the Kalee rivers, and thus comprises part of the province of Gurwal, from which it is naturally divided by a range of mountains. The whole of this district presents a succession of mountainous ridges, increasing in elevation as they approach the north, until they reach the snowy peaks of the Himalayas. Towards the south the country presents an almost uninterrupted succession of forests, containing many large trees; but in the higher region to the north, where the height amounts to 2500 feet above the plains, tropical productions disappear, there are no longer forests of any description, but in their place numerous groups of trees of various kinds commonly found in Europe; among these are the oak, fir, willow, mulberry, and birch. Ferns and lichens KRANTZ, ALBERT, born at Hamburg about the are everywhere seen, as well as wild raspberries and barmiddle of the fifteenth century, studied at Rostock, where berries, nettles and thistles. A description of tea-plant is he took degrees, and was made professor of philosophy and also found wild, but it has an emetic quality which unfits rector of that university in 1482. He afterwards became a it for use. During the cold season it is common for the canon of the cathedral of Hamburg, was elected syndic in farmers to quit their villages in the high grounds, and to 1489, and was sent by the Confederation of the Hanseatic proceed with their herds and flocks to the warmer districts Towns on several missions to France and England. He died below. Pheasants, black partridges, and sometimes woodcocks at Hamburg in 1517. He is the author of several historical are seen towards the north. Kumaon is very thinly inhaworks:-1. Chronica Regnorum Aquilonarium, Daniæ, bited, and by a race who do not partake of the hardy chaSueciæ, et Norvegia,' printed in 1546; 2. Saxonia, sive racter usually shown by the natives of so cold a region. In de Saxoniæ gentis vetusta origine, libri xii.,' 1520, with a complexion they resemble the Chinese, but their features Preface by Cisnerus; 3. 'Wandalia, sive Historia de Wan- point them out as of Hindu origin. Before the country dalorum vera origine, variis gentibus, crebra e patria mi- came under English dominion, the natives were much opgratione, regnis item quorum vel autores fuerunt vel ever-pressed by the Gorkhas, whose periodical incursions contisores, libri xiv.,' 1519; 4. Historia Ecclesiastica Saxoniæ,' 1548. All these works have gone through several editions, KREOSOTE. [CREOSOTE.] KRISHNA. [VISHNU.]

nually deprived them of the fruits of their toil, and entirely prevented the accumulation of property. At length, in 1799, the Gorkhas made a conquest of the country, and retained possession of it until 1815, when, after a short camlittle advantage in the way of revenue. The chief benefit paign, it was acquired by the English, to whom it offers but which it affords is derived from its climate, which is found to be almost as efficient in restoring its tone to the constitution of Europeans as a visit to Europe. For this purpose the capital, Almorah, is much frequented. [ALMORAH.]

KUPFERSCHIEFER, in geology, the German name (meaning copper-slate) for certain laminated rocks at the base of the magnesian limestone formation of Thuringia, which are impregnated with copper, and richly stored with Palæonisci and other fossil fishes. The equivalent beds in England (e.g. at Ferryhill in the county of Durham and at Whitley in Northumberland) are called marl-slate,' and are equally rich in similar, if not identical fishes. The such distant points is an interesting subject of geological cause of their (perhaps contemporaneous) destruction at speculation. (Agassiz, Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles; Sedgwick, On Magnesian Limestone, in Geol. Trans.)

KSHATRIYAS. [HINDUSTAN, p. 231.] KUBAN, or KOOBAN, is a river in Russia, which originates in Mount Caucasus, between the principal range and Mount Elbrooz. Having skirted the southern and western declivities of that snow-capped peak, it turns to the north, and afterwards to the west, and again to the north before it leaves the mountain-range near Grigoriopol. It then turns again to the west and flows along the northern offsets of the Caucasus, which it divides from the steppes of the Chernomore Cossacks, or the Cossacks of the Black Sea. Towards its mouth it enters a low flat country, and along its banks salt-marshes extend to a considerable distance. In this plain the river divides into two branches, and forms an island called the Island of Taman. One shallow branch, called by the Russians Chernaya Protoka, runs nearly due north, and falls into the Sea of Azoff. The other branch, which preserves the name of Kooban, continues its western course and falls into the Black Sea, or rather into an æstuary called Kubanskoi Liman, which is KUR, or KOOR, the antient Cyrus, a river in Asia, rises united to the Black Sea by a shallow passage scarcely 100 near 41° N. lat. and between 42° and 43° E. long., on the fathoms wide. The Kuban runs nearly 400 miles, and eastern declivity of the mountain-range which divides the generally with a rapid current between elevated banks. It waters falling into the Caspian Sea from those which run to is navigable for river-barges up to the town of Yekateri- the Black Sea. Its sources are a little south-west of the town nodar, and on its thinly inhabited banks a number of small of Ardahan, belonging to the Pashalik of Kars; but after a fortresses have been erected to protect the level country course of about fifty miles in an eastern direction it leaves from the incursions of the mountaineers of the Caucasus. the Turkish empire and enters Russia, where it gradually (Pallas's Travels through the Southern Provinces of the turns to the north, and passes near the fortress of Akaltsic or Russian Empire.) Ahkiskhar. The river afterwards gradually declines more KÜHLOCH, an ossiferous cave on the bank of the Es-to the east, until it runs east-south-east, and receives from bach River, near Rabenstein in Franconia, which is de- the southern declivity of Mount Caucasus the Arakui or scribed by Dr. Buckland as one of the most remarkable that Aragbor, a rapid river, which brings down a great mass of

water. Below this junction the Koor is a very considerable | rivers, of which there are 13 large and 495 smaller, is naviriver, and runs nearly south, passing the large town of gable. The Sem, or Seim, runs into the Desna, and conseTiflis. So far its course is bordered by high, steep, and quently belongs to the basin of the Dnieper. Among the rocky banks, and traverses a hilly country. Below Tiflis it rivers that join it is the Swava, which comes from Orel and enters the Plain of Kara, where its banks are alternately has many ruins and tumuli on its banks. The streams are low and high, the plain being considerably elevated above not frozen over till the end of November or the beginning its bed, so that the water of the river cannot be used for of December, and are free from ice at the beginning of irrigating any part of it. In this plain several springs of March. In some parts the tapeworm is endemic among petroleum occur. The Koor runs through the plain mostly the people, and the liver-fluke in the cattle. The corn in au east-south-eastern direction, and at its termination its occasionally suffers from blight. waters are increased by those of the Alazon, another power- Kursk is one of the most fertile provinces of the empire, ful river, descending from the southern declivity of Mount and in Great Russia at least is next to Orel in the abunCaucasus. After this junction the river traverses a hilly coun-dance of its harvests. The soil is so rich that it needs no try of some extent, passing through the narrow part called manure. When it is exhausted, it is suffered to lie fallow for Manga, and then enters that extensive plain which extends three or four years. The system of agriculture is very rude: along the Caspian Sea from Baku to the Bay of Kizil Agatch new ground is broken up with a large plough, drawn by for about 120 miles, and along the course of the river for three or four yoke of oxen; old lands are turned or scratched about 150 miles. This extensive plain is broken by isolated up with a light plough. The harvest begins in July: the hills and numerous salt-marshes. Some of the hills along corn is dried and threshed in the field; there are no barns, its northern border are mud-volcanoes, and in many places but the grain is deposited in pits in the ground, where it springs of petroleum occur. Near the banks of the Koor may be preserved for six or ten years, only covered with the country is subject to inundations, and overgrown with sods or boards. The commonest kinds of grain and their rushes to a considerable distance. The districts nearest the produce are:-winter rye, which yields from seven to sea-coast have a soil impregnated either with salt or pe- nine fold; winter wheat, from three to six fold; barley, troleum, and are completely sterile, such as the Mogan desert; from seven to twelve fold; oats, from eight to nine fold; peas, but towards the hills and mountains which surround the plain from five to seven fold: buck-wheat, from two to five fold; the soil is tolerably fertile. About 70 miles from its mouth millet, from eight to forty fold; and poppy, from twenty the Koor receives the Aras. [ARAS.] After its junction to forty fold. The other products are chiefly hemp and with the Aras, the Koor becomes navigable for moderate- tobacco and some flax. Horticulture is very general and sized vessels, and is about 140 yards wide. About 20 miles successful; all the vegetables usual in Germany are culti from the sea the river divides into several branches, of vated and thrive well: near the capital and on the estates of which the outermost are the largest. On the left main the nobility the more delicate vegetables are cultivated, and branch is the town of Salian, a collection of villages rather hops sufficient for consumption are found in most gardens. than a town, but a wealthy place, on account of the produc- There are apples, cherries, and various sorts of plums; but tive fishery which is carried on by the inhabitants in the scarcely any pears, except the wild sort, which is preserved. river, and especially at its mouth. The fish taken here are There is an abundance of hazel-nuts and wild berries: melons the same species which are caught at Astrakhan. The and water-melons are grown in the open fields. There is some delta of the Koor projects several miles into the Caspian wood in small coppices in most of the circles, but not enough Sea. The whole course of the river is about 560 miles. for consumption in any, and all must at least import timber (Dr. Reinegg's and Marshal Biberstein's Description of for building. In some they are obliged to use straw and Mount Caucasus.) cowdung for fuel. The crown forests cover an area of only 330 square miles. There are few beasts of the chase in these woods, but great numbers of wolves and foxes, the fur of which is of inferior quality. Hares, bustards, partridges, and quails abound. The breeding of cattle is indeed subsidiary to agriculture, but is carried on very extensively. The horses are of the Russian breed, but nearly equal to those of the Ukraine. Horned cattle are kept in great numbers, because oxen alone are employed in agriculture. Numbers of cattle are fattened, and cows are kept for the purposes of the dairy, but with less advantage than might be done. The sheep are of the Russian breed, and their wool is indifferent. Merinos do not thrive. The inhabitants keep numbers of swine and domestic poultry; and so many bees, that honey and wax are articles of ex portation. There is scarcely any fish. The minerals are some iron (of which no use is made), limestone, flints, and saltpetre.

KURDISTAN. [PERSIA.]

KURILE ISLANDS extend from Cape Lopatka, the southern extremity of the peninsula of Kamtchatka, in a somewhat curved line, to Cape Broughton, the northeastern extremity of the island of Yeso. Some geographers even consider the last-mentioned island as one of the Kuriles. They are twenty-five in number, besides numerous rocks, and are all of volcanic origin, consisting of high masses of lava. Ten active volcanoes are known to exist on the nineteen northern islands. The vegetation is scanty, and on those near Kamtchatka trees do not grow; but the southern islands are more fertile, especially Kunashir and Iturup, on which the Japanese have settled. The remainder are claimed by the Russians as an appendage to Kamtchatka, and they even established a settlement on Urup, in 1828, for the purpose of hunting the numerous wild animals, especially beavers, which are found there. The natives are partly Kamtchadales and partly Aïnos, a Agriculture and the breeding of cattle are the most protribe which seems to belong to the same race as the Ja-fitable and the chief employments: very few hands are panese. Both tribes live on the produce of the chace, or engaged in manufactures. Such clothing as the countryman rather of their fisheries. The Japanese have introduced wants-shirts, stockings, gloves, and caps, are of his own agriculture into the islands which have been settled by manufacture. He often makes his own household furniture and farming implements, and builds his own house; so that he scarcely needs the help of the mechanics, of whom however many are settled in the villages, who make articles for sale and frequent the fairs. The manufactures are chiefly in the towns, the most industrious of which are Kursk and Belgorod. The exports consist of the natural productions of the country, which are mostly sent by land to the Volga and thence to Petersburg. Lately attempts have been made to send them by the Sem and the Desna to Odessa. The population, which amounts to 1,720,000, consists partly of Great, partly of Little Russians; most of the lat ter came into the province in the 18th century. There are few strangers, but there is one entire village of gipsies, and many unsettled families of that people who lead a nomadic life. The head of the Greek church is the archbishop of Kursk and Belgorod, whose diocese is of the third class, and who has 870 churches under him.

them.

KURLAND. [COURLAND.]

KURSK, a large government of European Russia, lies between 50° 20′ and 52° 26' N. lat. and 33° 40′ and 38° 20′ E. long. It is bounded on the north by Orel, on the east by Voronetz, on the south and south-west by Slobodsk-Ukraine, and on the north-west by Tschernigov. Its area is 14,720 square miles. The extreme breadth is 150, and its extreme length 200 miles. The surface of the province is undulating. It contains no mountains, but is traversed by many small eminences. There are no large rivers or large lakes, nor are the forests extensive. The soil is fertile and well cultivated, and the country populous, and covered with villages. The soil generally consists of a rich mould, of sufficient depth, over a thick clayey or loamy bottom; sand or stiff clay occurs but rarely, and heath and moor still more rarely. The hills consist of clay, marl, lime, freestone, and chalk. The principal river is the Donetz, which, after being joined by the Oskol, Uloscha, and other rivers, flows into Slobodsk-Ukraine, where it joins the Don. Neither the Donetz nor any of the other

KURSK, the capital of the government, in 51° 43′ 30 N. lat. and 36° 27′ 45" E. long., is the residence of the mili tary governor of Kursk and Orel, of the civil governor and