[1] North of the Black Patch is a district in which is grown a
heavy-leaf tobacco, a large part of which is shipped to Great
Britain; and farther north and east a dark tobacco is grown for the
American market.
[2] In the census of 1905 statistics for other than factory-made
products, such as those of the hand trades, were not included.
[3] For a full account of the "licks," see vol. i. pt. ii. of the
_Memoirs of the Kentucky Geological Survey_ (1876).
[4] The population of the state at the previous censuses was: 73,677
in 1790; 220,955 in 1800; 406,511 in 1810; 564,317 in 1820; 687,917
in 1830; 779,828 in 1840; 982,405 in 1850; 1,155,684 in 1860 and
1,321,011 in 1870.
[5] There were three previous constitutions--those of 1792, 1799 and
1850.
[6] Most of the early settlers of Kentucky made their way thither
either by the Ohio river (from Fort Pitt) or--the far larger
number--by way of the Cumberland Gap and the "Wilderness Road." This
latter route began at Inglis's Ferry, on the New river, in what is
now West Virginia, and proceeded west by south to the Cumberland Gap.
The "Wilderness Road," as marked by Daniel Boone in 1775, was a mere
trail, running from the Watauga settlement in east Tennessee to the
Cumberland Gap, and thence by way of what are now Crab Orchard,
Danville and Bardstown, to the Falls of the Ohio, and was passable
only for men and horses until 1795, when the state made it a wagon
road. Consult Thomas Speed, _The Wilderness Road_ (Louisville, Ky.,
1886), and Archer B. Hulbert, _Boone's Wilderness Road_ (Cleveland,
O., 1903).
[7] The "Barrens" were in the north part of the state west of the
Blue Grass Region, and were so called merely because the Indians had
burned most of the forests here in order to provide better pasturage
for buffaloes and other game.
[8] The southern boundary to the Tennessee river was surveyed in
1779-1780 by commissioners representing Virginia and North Carolina,
and was supposed to be run along the parallel of latitude 36° 30´,
but by mistake was actually run north of that parallel. By a treaty
of 1819 the Indian title to the territory west of the Tennessee was
extinguished, and commissioners then ran a line along the parallel of
36° 30´ from the Mississippi to the Tennessee. In 1820 commissioners
representing Kentucky and Tennessee formally adopted the line of
1779-1780 and the line of 1819 as the boundary between the two
states.
[9] This resolution read as follows: Resolved, that the several
states composing the United States of America are not united on the
principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but
that by compact under the style of a Constitution for the United
States and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general
government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain
definite powers, reserving each state to itself the residuary mass of
right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general
government assumes undelegated powers its acts are unauthoritative,
void, and of no force: That to this compact each state acceded as a
state, and is an integral party, its co-states forming, as to itself,
the other party: That the government created by this compact was not
made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers
delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and
not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all
other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each
party has an equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions
as of the mode and measure of redress.
[10] He died in 1852, but the traditions which he represented
survived.
KENYA, a great volcanic mountain in British East Africa, situated just
south of the equator in 37° 20´ E. It is one of the highest mountains of
Africa, its highest peak reaching an altitude of 17,007 ft. (with a
possible error of 30 ft. either way). The central core, which consists
of several steep pyramids, is that of a very denuded old volcano, which
when its crater was complete may have reached 2000 ft. above the present
summit. Lavas dip in all directions from the central crystalline core,
pointing to the conclusion that the main portion of the mountain
represents a single volcanic mass. From the central peaks, of which the
axis runs from W.N.W. to S.S.E., ridges radiate outwards, separated by
broad valleys, ending upwards in vast cirques. The most important ridges
centre in the peak Lenana (16,300 ft.) at the eastern end of the central
group, and through it runs the chief water-parting of the mountain, in a
generally north to south direction. Three main valleys, known
respectively as Hinde, Gorges and Hobley valleys, run down from this to
the east, and four--Mackinder, Hausberg, Teleki and Höhnel--to the west.
From the central peaks fifteen glaciers, all lying west of the main
divide, descend to the north and south, the two largest being the Lewis
and Gregory glaciers, each about 1 m. long, which, with the smaller Kolb
glacier, lie immediately west of the main divide. Most of the glaciers
terminate at an altitude of 14,800-14,900 ft., but the small César
glacier, drained to the Hausberg valley, reaches to 14,450. Glaciation
was formerly much more extensive, old moraines being observed down to
12,000 ft. In the upper parts of the valleys a number of lakes occur,
occupying hollows and rock basins in the agglomerates and ashes, fed by
springs, and feeding many of the streams that drain the mountain slopes.
The largest of these are Lake Höhnel, lying at an altitude of 14,000
ft., at the head of the valley of the same name, and measuring 600 by
400 yds.; and Lake Michaelson (12,700 ft.?) in the Gorges Valley. At a
distance from the central core the radiating ridges become less abrupt
and descend with a gentle gradient, finally passing somewhat abruptly,
at a height of some 7000 ft., into the level plateau. These outer slopes
are clothed with dense forest and jungle, composed chiefly of junipers
and _Podocarpus_, and between 8000 and 9800 ft. of huge bamboos. The
forest zone extends to about 10,500 ft., above which is the steeper
alpine zone, in which pasturages alternate with rocks and crags. This
extends to a general height of about 15,000 ft., but in damp, sheltered
valleys the pasturages extend some distance higher. The only trees or
shrubs in this zone are the giant _Senecio_ (groundsel) and _Lobelia_,
and tree-heaths, the _Senecio_ forming groves in the upper valleys. Of
the fauna of the lower slopes, tracks of elephant, leopard and buffalo
have been seen, between 11,500 and 14,500 ft. That of the alpine zone
includes two species of dassy (_Procavia_), a coney (_Hyrax_), and a rat
(_Otomys_). The bird fauna is of considerable interest, the finest
species of the upper zone being an eagle-owl, met with at 14,000 ft. At
11,000 ft. was found a brown chat, with a good deal of white in the
tail. Both the fauna and flora of the higher levels present close
affinities with those of Mount Elgon, of other mountains of East Africa
and of Cameroon Mountain. The true native names of the mountain are said
to be Kilinyaga, Doenyo Ebor (white mountain) and Doenyo Egeri (spotted
mountain). It was first seen, from a distance, by the missionary Ludwig
Krapf in 1849; approached from the west by Joseph Thomson in 1883;
partially ascended by Count S. Teleki (1889), J. W. Gregory (1893) and
Georg Kolb (1896); and its summit reached by H. J. Mackinder in 1899.
See J. W. Gregory, _The Great Rift-Valley_ (London, 1896); H. J.
Mackinder, "Journey to the Summit of Mount Kenya," _Geog. Jnl._, May
1900. (E. He.)
KENYON, LLOYD KENYON, 1ST BARON (1732-1802), lord chief-justice of
England, was descended by his father's side from an old Lancashire
family; his mother was the daughter of a small proprietor in Wales. He
was born at Gredington, Flintshire, on the 5th of October 1732. Educated
at Ruthin grammar school, he was in his fifteenth year articled to an
attorney at Nantwich, Cheshire. In 1750 he entered at Lincoln's Inn,
London, and in 1756 was called to the bar. As for several years he was
almost unemployed, he utilized his leisure in taking notes of the cases
argued in the court of King's Bench, which he afterwards published.
Through answering the cases of his friend John Dunning, afterwards Lord
Ashburton, he gradually became known to the attorneys, after which his
success was so rapid that in 1780 he was made king's counsel. He showed
conspicuous ability in the cross-examination of the witnesses at the
trial of Lord George Gordon, but his speech was so tactless that the
verdict of acquittal was really due to the brilliant effort of Erskine,
the junior counsel. This want of tact, indeed, often betrayed Kenyon
into striking blunders; as an advocate he was, moreover, deficient in
ability of statement; and his position was achieved chiefly by hard
work, a good knowledge of law and several lucky friendships. Through the
influence of Lord Thurlow, Kenyon in 1780 entered the House of Commons
as member for Hindon, and in 1782 he was, through the same friendship,
appointed attorney-general in Lord Buckingham's administration, an
office which he continued to hold under Pitt. In 1784 he received the
mastership of the rolls, and was created a baronet. In 1788 he was
appointed lord chief justice as successor to Lord Mansfield, and the
same year was raised to the peerage as Baron Kenyon of Gredington. As he
had made many enemies, his elevation was by no means popular with the
bar; but on the bench, in spite of his capricious and choleric temper,
he proved himself not only an able lawyer, but a judge of rare and
inflexible impartiality. He died at Bath, on the 4th of April 1802.
Kenyon was succeeded as 2nd baron by his son George (1776-1855), whose
great-grandson, Lloyd (b. 1864), became the 4th baron in 1869.
See _Life_ by Hon. G. T. Kenyon, 1873.
KEOKUK, a city of Lee county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Mississippi river, at
the mouth of the Des Moines, in the S.E. corner of the state, about 200
m. above St Louis. Pop. (1900), 14,641; (1905), 14,604, including 1534
foreign-born; (1910), 14,008. It is served by the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Wabash, and the Toledo,
Peoria & Western railways. There is a bridge (about 2200 ft. long)
across the Mississippi, and another (about 1200 ft. long) across the Des
Moines. The city has a public library and St Joseph and Graham
hospitals, and is the seat of the Keokuk Medical College (1849). There
is a national cemetery here. Much of the city is built on bluffs along
the Mississippi. Keokuk is at the foot of the Des Moines Rapids, round
which the Federal Government has constructed a navigable canal (opened
1877) about 9 m. long, with a draft at extreme low water of 5 ft.; at
the foot a great dam, 1½ m. long and 38 ft. high, has been constructed.
Keokuk has various manufactures; its factory product in 1905 was valued
at $4,225,915, 38.6% more than in 1900. The city was named after Keokuk,
a chief of the Sauk and Foxes (1780-1848), whose name meant "the
watchful" or "he who moves alertly." In spite of Black Hawk's war policy
in 1832 Keokuk was passive and neutral, and with a portion of his nation
remained peaceful while Black Hawk and his warriors fought. His grave,
surmounted by a monument, is in Rand Park. The first house on the site
of the city was built about 1820, but further settlement did not begin
until 1836. Keokuk was laid out as a town in 1837, was chartered as a
city in 1848, and in 1907 was one of five cities of the state governed
by a special charter.
KEONJHAR, a tributary state of India, within the Orissa division of
Bengal; area, 3096 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 285,758; estimated revenue,
£20,000. The state is an offshoot from Mayurbhanj. Part of it consists
of rugged hills, rising to more than 3000 ft. above sea-level. The
residence of the raja is at Keonjhar (pop. 4532).
KEONTHAL, a petty hill state in the Punjab, India, with an area of 116
sq. m.; pop. (1901), 22,499; estimated revenue, £4400. The chief, a
Rajput, received the title of raja in 1857. After the Gurkha War in
1815, a portion of Keonthal, which had been occupied by the Gurkhas, was
sold to the maharaja of Patiala, the remainder being restored to its
hereditary chief. In 1823 the district of Punar was added to the
Keonthal state. The raja exercises rights of lordship over the petty
states of Kothi, Theog, Madhan and Ratesh.
KEPLER, JOHANN (1571-1630), German astronomer, was born on the 27th of
December 1571, at Weil, in the duchy of Württemberg, of which town his
grandfather was burgomaster. He was the eldest child of an ill-assorted
union. His father, Henry Kepler, was a reckless soldier of fortune; his
mother, Catherine Guldenmann, the daughter of the burgomaster of
Eltingen, was undisciplined and ill-educated. Her husband found
campaigning in Flanders under Alva a welcome relief from domestic life;
and, after having lost all he possessed by a forfeited security and
tried without success the trade of tavern-keeping in the village of
Elmendingen, he finally, in 1589, deserted his family. The misfortune
and misconduct of his parents were not the only troubles of Kepler's
childhood. He recovered from small-pox in his fourth year with crippled
hands and eyesight permanently impaired; and a constitution enfeebled by
premature birth had to withstand successive shocks of severe illness.
His schooling began at Leonberg in 1577--the year, as he himself tells
us, of a great comet; but domestic bankruptcy occasioned his
transference to field-work, in which he was exclusively employed for
several years. Bodily infirmity, combined with mental aptitude, were
eventually considered to indicate à theological vocation; he was, in
1584, placed at the seminary of Adelberg, and thence removed, two years
later, to that of Maulbronn. A brilliant examination for the degree of
bachelor procured him, in 1588, admittance on the foundation to the
university of Tübingen, where he laid up a copious store of classical
erudition, and imbibed Copernican principles from the private
instructions of his teacher and life-long friend, Michael Maestlin. As
yet, however, he had little knowledge of, and less inclination for,
astronomy; and it was with extreme reluctance that he turned aside from
the more promising career of the ministry to accept, early in 1594, the
vacant chair of that science at Gratz, placed at the disposal of the
Tübingen professors by the Lutheran states of Styria.
The best recognized function of German astronomers in that day was the
construction of prophesying almanacs, greedily bought by a credulous
public. Kepler thus found that the first duties required of him were of
an astrological nature, and set himself with characteristic alacrity to
master the rules of the art as laid down by Ptolemy and Cardan. He,
moreover, sought in the events of his own life a verification of the
theory of planetary influences; and it is to this practice that we owe
the summary record of each year's occurrences which, continued almost to
his death, affords for his biography a slight but sure foundation. But
his thoughts were already working in a higher sphere. He early attained
to the settled conviction that for the actual disposition of the solar
system some abstract intelligible reason must exist, and this, after
much meditation, he believed himself to have found in an imaginary
relation between the "five regular solids" and the number and distances
of the planets. He notes with exultation the 9th of July 1595, as the
date of the pseudo-discovery, the publication of which in _Prodromus
Dissertationum Cosmographicarum seu Mysterium Cosmographicum_ (Tübingen,
1596) procured him much fame, and a friendly correspondence with the two
most eminent astronomers of the time, Tycho Brahe and Galileo.
Soon after his arrival at Gratz, Kepler contracted an engagement with
Barbara von Mühleck, a wealthy Styrian heiress, who, at the age of
twenty-three, had already survived one husband and been divorced from
another. Before her relatives could be brought to countenance his
pretensions, Kepler was obliged to undertake a journey to Württemberg to
obtain documentary evidence of the somewhat obscure nobility of his
family, and it was thus not until the 27th of April 1597 that the
marriage was celebrated. In the following year the archduke Ferdinand,
on assuming the government of his hereditary dominions, issued an edict
of banishment against Protestant preachers and professors. Kepler
immediately fled to the Hungarian frontier, but, by the favour of the
Jesuits, was recalled and reinstated in his post. The gymnasium,
however, was deserted; the nobles of Styria began to murmur at
subsidizing a teacher without pupils; and he found it prudent to look
elsewhere for employment. His refusal to subscribe unconditionally to
the rigid formula of belief adopted by the theologians of Tübingen
permanently closed against him the gates of his _alma mater_. His
embarrassment was relieved however by an offer from Tycho Brahe of the
position of assistant in his observatory near Prague, which, after a
preliminary visit of four months, he accepted. The arrangement was made
just in time; for in August 1600 he received definitive notice to leave
Gratz, and, having leased his wife's property, he departed with his
family for Prague.
By Tycho's unexpected death (Oct. 24, 1601) a brilliant career seemed to
be thrown open to Kepler. The emperor Rudolph II. immediately appointed
him to succeed his patron as imperial mathematician, although at a
reduced salary of 500 florins; the invaluable treasure of Tycho's
observations was placed at his disposal; and the laborious but congenial
task was entrusted to him of completing the tables to which the grateful
Dane had already affixed the title of _Rudolphine_. The first works
executed by him at Prague were, nevertheless, a homage to the
astrological proclivities of the emperor. In _De fundamentis astrologiae
certioribus_ (Prague, 1602) he declared his purpose of preserving and
purifying the grain of truth which he believed the science to contain.
Indeed, the doctrine of "aspects" and "influences" fitted excellently
with his mystical conception of the universe, and enabled him to
discharge with a semblance of sincerity the most lucrative part of his
professional duties. Although he strictly limited his prophetic
pretensions to the estimate of tendencies and probabilities, his
forecasts were none the less in demand. Shrewd sense and considerable
knowledge of the world came to the aid of stellar lore in the
preparation of "prognostics" which, not unfrequently hitting off the
event, earned him as much credit with the vulgar as his cosmical
speculations with the learned. He drew the horoscopes of the emperor and
Wallenstein, as well as of a host of lesser magnates; but, though keenly
alive to the unworthy character of such a trade, he made necessity his
excuse for a compromise with superstition. "Nature," he wrote, "which
has conferred upon every animal the means of subsistence, has given
astrology as an adjunct and ally to astronomy." He dedicated to the
emperor in 1603 a treatise on the "great conjunction" of that year
(_Judicium de trigono igneo_); and he published his observations on a
brilliant star which appeared suddenly (Sept. 30, 1604), and remained
visible for seventeen months, in _De stella nova in pede Serpentarii_
(Prague, 1606). While sharing the opinion of Tycho as to the origin of
such bodies by condensation of nebulous matter from the Milky Way, he
attached a mystical signification to the coincidence in time and place
of the sidereal apparition with a triple conjunction of Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn.
The main task of his life was not meanwhile neglected. This was nothing
less than the foundation of a new astronomy, in which physical cause
should replace arbitrary hypothesis. A preliminary study of optics led
to the publication, in 1604, of his _Astronomiae pars optica_,
containing important discoveries in the theory of vision, and a notable
approximation towards the true law of refraction. But it was not until
1609 that, the "great Martian labour" being at length completed, he was
able, in his own figurative language, to lead the captive planet to the
foot of the imperial throne. From the time of his first introduction to
Tycho he had devoted himself to the investigation of the orbit of Mars,
which, on account of its relatively large eccentricity, had always been
especially recalcitrant to theory, and the results appeared in
_Astronomia nova_ [Greek: haitiologêtos], _seu Physica coelestis tradita
commentariis de motibus stellae Martis_ (Prague, 1609). In this, the
most memorable of Kepler's multifarious writings, two of the cardinal
principles of modern astronomy--the laws of elliptical orbits and of
equal areas--were established (see ASTRONOMY: _History_); important
truths relating to gravity were enunciated, and the tides ascribed to
the influence of lunar attraction; while an attempt to explain the
planetary revolutions in the then backward condition of mechanical
knowledge produced a theory of vortices closely resembling that
afterwards adopted by Descartes. Having been provided, in August 1610,
by Ernest, archbishop of Cologne, with one of the new Galilean
instruments, Kepler began, with unspeakable delight, to observe the
wonders revealed by it. He had welcomed with a little essay called
_Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo_ Galileo's first announcement of
celestial novelties; he now, in his _Dioptrice_ (Augsburg, 1611),
expounded the theory of refraction by lenses, and suggested the
principle of the "astronomical" or inverting telescope. Indeed the work
may be said to have founded the branch of science to which it gave its
name.
The year 1611 was marked by Kepler as the most disastrous of his life.
The death by small-pox of his favourite child was followed by that of
his wife, who, long a prey to melancholy, was on the 3rd of July
carried off by typhus. Public calamity was added to private bereavement.
On the 23rd of May 1611 Matthias, brother of the emperor, assumed the
Bohemian crown in Prague, compelling Rudolph to take refuge in the
citadel, where he died on the 20th of January following. Kepler's
fidelity in remaining with him to the last did not deprive him of the
favour of his successor. Payments of arrears, now amounting to upwards
of 4000 florins, was not, however, in the desperate condition of the
imperial finances, to be hoped for; and he was glad, while retaining his
position as court astronomer, to accept (in 1612) the office of
mathematician to the states of Upper Austria. His residence at Linz was
troubled by the harsh conduct of the pastor Hitzler, in excluding him
from the rites of his church on the ground of supposed Calvinistic
leanings--a decision confirmed, with the addition of an insulting
reprimand, on his appeal to Württemberg. In 1613 he appeared with the
emperor Matthias before the diet of Ratisbon as the advocate of the
introduction into Germany of the Gregorian calendar; but the attempt was
for the time frustrated by anti-papal prejudice. The attention devoted
by him to chronological subjects is evidenced by the publication about
this period of several essays in which he sought to prove that the birth
of Christ took place five years earlier than the commonly accepted date.
Kepler's second courtship forms the subject of a highly characteristic
letter addressed by him to Baron Stralendorf, in which he reviews the
qualifications of eleven candidates for his hand, and explains the
reasons which decided his choice in favour of a portionless orphan girl
named Susanna Reutlinger. The marriage was celebrated at Linz, on the
30th of October 1613, and seems to have proved a happy and suitable one.
The abundant vintage of that year drew his attention to the defective
methods in use for estimating the cubical contents of vessels, and his
essay on the subject (_Nova Stereometria Doliorum_, Linz, 1615) entitles
him to rank among those who prepared the discovery of the infinitesimal
calculus. His observations on the three comets of 1618 were published in
_De Cometis_, contemporaneously with _De Harmonice Mundi_ (Augsburg,
1619), of which the first lineaments had been traced twenty years
previously at Gratz. This extraordinary production is memorable as
having announced the discovery of the "third law"--that of the
sesquiplicate ratio between the planetary periods and distances. But the
main purport of the treatise was the exposition of an elaborate system
of celestial harmonies depending on the various and varying velocities
of the several planets, of which the sentient soul animating the sun was
the solitary auditor. The work exhibiting this fantastic emulation of
extravagance with genius was dedicated to James I. of England, and the
compliment was acknowledged with an invitation to that island, conveyed
through Sir Henry Wotton. Notwithstanding the distracted state of his
own country, he refused to abandon it, as he had previously, in 1617,
declined the post of successor to G. A. Magini in the mathematical chair
of Bologna.
The insurmountable difficulties presented by the lunar theory forced
Kepler, after an enormous amount of fruitless labour, to abandon his
design of comprehending the whole scheme of the heavens in one great
work to be called _Hipparchus_, and he then threw a portion of his
materials into the form of a dialogue intended for the instruction of
general readers. The _Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae_ (Linz and
Frankfort, 1618-1621), a lucid and attractive textbook of Copernican
science, was remarkable for the prominence given to "physical
astronomy," as well as for the extension to the Jovian system of the
laws recently discovered to regulate the motions of the planets. The
first of a series of ephemerides, calculated on these principles, was
published by him at Linz in 1617; and in that for 1620, dedicated to
Baron Napier, he for the first time employed logarithms. This important
invention was eagerly welcomed by him, and its theory formed the subject
of a treatise entitled _Chilias Logarithmorum_, printed in 1624, but
circulated in manuscript three years earlier, which largely contributed
to bring the new method into general use in Germany.
His studies were interrupted by family trouble. The restless
disposition and unbridled tongue of Catherine Kepler, his mother,
created for her numerous enemies in the little town of Leonberg; while
her unguarded conduct exposed her to a species of calumny at that time
readily circulated and believed. As early as 1615 suspicions of sorcery
began to be spread against her, which she, with more spirit than
prudence, met with an action for libel. The suit was purposely
protracted, and at length, in 1620, the unhappy woman, then in her
seventy-fourth year, was arrested on a formal charge of witchcraft.
Kepler immediately hastened to Württemberg, and owing to his
indefatigable exertions she was acquitted after having suffered thirteen
month's imprisonment, and endured with undaunted courage the formidable
ordeal of "territion," or examination under the imminent threat of
torture. She survived her release only a few months, dying on the 13th
of April 1622.
Kepler's whole attention was now devoted to the production of the new
tables. "Germany," he wrote, "does not long for peace more anxiously
than I do for their publication." But financial difficulties, combined
with civil and religious convulsions, long delayed the accomplishment of
his desires. From the 24th of June to the 29th of August 1626, Linz was
besieged, and its inhabitants reduced to the utmost straits by bands of
insurgent peasants. The pursuit of science needed a more tranquil
shelter; and on the raising of the blockade, Kepler obtained permission
to transfer his types to Ulm, where, in September 1627, the _Rudolphine
Tables_ were at length given to the world. Although by no means free
from errors, their value appears from the fact that they ranked for a
century as the best aid to astronomy. Appended were tables of logarithms
and of refraction, together with Tycho's catalogue of 777 stars,
enlarged by Kepler to 1005.
Kepler's claims upon the insolvent imperial exchequer amounted by this
time to 12,000 florins. The emperor Ferdinand II., too happy to transfer
the burden, countenanced an arrangement by which Kepler entered the
service of the duke of Friedland (Wallenstein), who assumed the full
responsibility of the debt. In July 1628 Kepler accordingly arrived with
his family at Sagan in Silesia, where he applied himself to the printing
of his ephemerides up to the year 1636, and whence he issued, in 1629, a
_Notice to the Curious in Things Celestial_, warning astronomers of
approaching transits. That of Mercury was actually seen by Gassendi in
Paris on the 7th of November 1631 (being the first passage of a planet
across the sun ever observed); that of Venus, predicted for the 6th of
December following, was invisible in western Europe. Wallenstein's
promises to Kepler were but imperfectly fulfilled. In lieu of the sums
due, he offered him a professorship at Rostock, which Kepler declined.
An expedition to Ratisbon, undertaken for the purpose of representing
his case to the diet, terminated his life. Shaken by the journey, which
he had performed entirely on horseback, he was attacked with fever, and
died at Ratisbon, on the 15th of November (N.S.), 1630, in the
fifty-ninth year of his age. An inventory of his effects showed him to
have been possessed of no inconsiderable property at the time of his
death. By his first wife he had five, and by his second seven children,
of whom only two, a son and a daughter, reached maturity.
The character of Kepler's genius is especially difficult to estimate.
His tendency towards mystical speculation formed a not less
fundamental quality of his mind than its strong grasp of positive
scientific truth. Without assigning to each element its due value, no
sound comprehension of his modes of thought can be attained. His idea
of the universe was essentially Pythagorean and Platonic. He started
with the conviction that the arrangement of its parts must correspond
with certain abstract conceptions of the beautiful and harmonious. His
imagination, thus kindled, animated him to those severe labours of
which his great discoveries were the fruit. His demonstration that the
planes of all the planetary orbits pass through the centre of the sun,
coupled with his clear recognition of the sun as the moving power of
the system, entitles him to rank as the founder of physical astronomy.
But the fantastic relations imagined by him of planetary movements and
distances to musical intervals and geometrical constructions seemed to
himself discoveries no less admirable than the achievements which have
secured his lasting fame. Outside the boundaries of the solar system,
the metaphysical side of his genius, no longer held in check by
experience, fully asserted itself. The Keplerian like the Pythagorean
cosmos was threefold, consisting of the centre, or sun, the surface,
represented by the sphere of the fixed stars, and the intermediate
space, filled with ethereal matter. It is a mistake to suppose that he
regarded the stars as so many suns. He quotes indeed the opinion of
Giordano Bruno to that effect, but with dissent. Among his happy
conjectures may be mentioned that of the sun's axial rotation,
postulated by him as the physical cause of the revolutions of the
planets, and soon after confirmed by the discovery of sun-spots; the
suggestion of a periodical variation in the obliquity of the ecliptic;
and the explanation as a solar atmospheric effect of the radiance
observed to surround the totally eclipsed sun.
It is impossible to consider without surprise the colossal amount of
work accomplished by Kepler under numerous disadvantages. But his iron
industry counted no obstacles, and secured for him the highest triumph
of genius, that of having given to mankind the best that was in him.
In private character he was amiable and affectionate; his generosity
in recognizing the merits of others secured him against the worst
shafts of envy; and a life marked by numerous disquietudes was cheered
and ennobled by sentiments of sincere piety.
Kepler's extensive literary remains, purchased by the empress
Catherine II. in 1724 from some Frankfort merchants, and long
inaccessibly deposited in the observatory of Pulkowa, were fully
brought to light, under the able editorship of Dr Ch. Frisch, in the
first complete edition of his works. This important publication
(_Joannis Kepleri opera omnia_, Frankfort, 1858-1871, 8 vols. 8vo)
contains, besides the works already enumerated and several minor
treatises, a posthumous scientific satire entitled _Joh. Keppleri
Somnium_ (first printed in 1634) and a vast mass of his
correspondence. A careful biography is appended, founded mainly on his
private notes and other authentic documents. His correspondence with
Herwart von Hohenburg, unearthed by C. Anschütz at Munich, was printed
at Prague in 1886.
AUTHORITIES--C. G. Reuschle, _Kepler und die Astronomie_ (Frankfort,
1871); Karl Goebel, _Über Keplers astronomische Anschauungen_ (Halle,
1871); E. F. Apelt, _Johann Keplers astronomische Weltansicht_
(Leipzig, 1849); J. L. C. Breitschwert, _Johann Keplers Leben und
Wirken_ (Stuttgart, 1831); W. Förster, _Johann Kepler und die Harmonie
der Sphären_ (Berlin, 1862); R. Wolf, _Geschichte der Astronomie_
(Munich, 1877); J. von Hasner, _Tycho Brahe und J. Kepler in Prag_
(1872); H. Brocard, _Essai sur la Météorologie de Kepler_ (Grenoble,
1879, 1881); Siegmund Günther, _Johannes Kepler und der
tellurisch-kosmische Magnetismus_ (Wien, 1888); N. Herz, _Keplers
Astrologie_ (1895); Ludwig Günther, Keplers _Traum vom Mond_ (1898; an
annotated translation of the _Somnium_); A. Müller, _Johann Keppler,
der Gesetzgeber der neueren Astronomie_ (1903); _Allgemeine Deutsche
Biographie_, Bd. XV. (1882). (A. M. C.)
KEPPEL, AUGUSTUS KEPPEL, VISCOUNT (1725-1786), British admiral, second
son of the second earl of Albemarle, was born on the 25th of April 1725.
He went to sea at the age of ten, and had already five years of service
to his credit when he was appointed to the "Centurion," and was sent
with Anson round the world in 1740. He had a narrow escape of being
killed in the capture of Paita (Nov. 13, 1741), and was named acting
lieutenant in 1742. In 1744 he was promoted to be commander and post
captain. Until the peace of 1748 he was actively employed. In 1747 he
ran his ship the "Maidstone" (50) ashore near Belleisle while chasing a
French vessel, but was honourably acquitted by a court martial, and
reappointed to another command. After peace had been signed he was sent
into the Mediterranean to persuade the dey of Algiers to restrain the
piratical operations of his subjects. The dey is said to have complained
that the king of England should have sent a beardless boy to treat with
him, and to have been told that if the beard was the necessary
qualification for an ambassador it would have been easy to send a "Billy
goat." After trying the effect of bullying without success, the dey made
a treaty, and Keppel returned in 1751. During the Seven Years' War he
saw constant service. He was in North America in 1755, on the coast of
France in 1756, was detached on a cruise to reduce the French
settlements on the west coast of Africa in 1758, and his ship the
"Torbay" (74) was the first to get into action in the battle of Quiberon
in 1759. In 1757 he had formed part of the court martial which had
condemned Admiral Byng, and had been active among those who had
endeavoured to secure a pardon for him; but neither he nor those who had
acted with him could produce any serious reason why the sentence should
not be carried out. When Spain joined France in 1762 he was sent as
second in command with Sir George Pocock in the expedition which took
Havannah. His health suffered from the fever which carried off an
immense proportion of the soldiers and sailors, but the £25,000 of
prize money which he received freed him from the unpleasant position of
younger son of a family ruined by the extravagance of his father. He
became rear-admiral in October 1762, was one of the Admiralty Board from
July 1765 to November 1766, and was promoted vice-admiral on the 24th of
October 1770. When the Falkland Island dispute occurred in 1770 he was
to have commanded the fleet to be sent against Spain, but a settlement
was reached, and he had no occasion to hoist his flag. The most
important and the most debated period of his life belongs to the opening
years of the war of American Independence. Keppel was by family
connexion and personal preference a strong supporter of the Whig
connexion, led by the Marquess of Rockingham and the Duke of Richmond.
He shared in all the passions of his party, then excluded from power by
the resolute will of George III. As a member of Parliament, in which he
had a seat for Windsor from 1761 till 1780, and then for Surrey, he was
a steady partisan, and was in constant hostility with the "King's
Friends." In common with them he was prepared to believe that the king's
ministers, and in particular Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the
Admiralty, were capable of any villany. When therefore he was appointed
to command the Western Squadron, the main fleet prepared against France
in 1778, he went to sea predisposed to think that the First Lord would
be glad to cause him to be defeated. It was a further misfortune that
when Keppel hoisted his flag one of his subordinate admirals should have
been Sir Hugh Palliser (1723-1796), who was a member of the Admiralty
Board, a member of parliament, and in Keppel's opinion, which was
generally shared, jointly responsible with his colleagues for the bad
state of the navy. When, therefore, the battle which Keppel fought with
the French on the 27th of July 1778 ended in a highly unsatisfactory
manner, owing mainly to his own unintelligent management, but partly
through the failure of Sir Hugh Palliser to obey orders, he became
convinced that he had been deliberately betrayed. Though he praised Sir
Hugh in his public despatch he attacked him in private, and the Whig
press, with the unquestionable aid of Keppel's friends, began a campaign
of calumny to which the ministerial papers answered in the same style,
each side accusing the other of deliberate treason. The result was a
scandalous series of scenes in parliament and of courts martial. Keppel
was first tried and acquitted in 1779, and then Palliser was also tried
and acquitted. Keppel was ordered to strike his flag in March 1779.
Until the fall of Lord North's ministry he acted as an opposition member
of parliament. When it fell in 1782 be became First Lord, and was
created Viscount Keppel and Baron Elden. His career in office was not
distinguished, and he broke with his old political associates by
resigning as a protest against the Peace of Paris. He finally
discredited himself by joining the Coalition ministry formed by North
and Fox, and with its fall disappeared from public life. He died
unmarried on the 2nd of October 1786. Burke, who regarded him with great
affection, said that he had "something high" in his nature, and that it
was "a wild stock of pride on which the tenderest of all hearts had
grafted the milder virtues." His popularity disappeared entirely in his
later years. His portrait was six times painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The copy which belonged originally to Burke is now in the National
Gallery.
There is a full _Life of Keppel_ (1842), by his grand-nephew, the Rev.
Thomas Keppel. (D. H.)
KEPPEL, SIR HENRY (1809-1904), British admiral, son of the 4th earl of
Albemarle and of his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Lord de Clifford, was
born on the 14th of June 1809, and entered the navy from the old naval
academy of Portsmouth in 1822. His family connexions secured him rapid
promotion, at a time when the rise of less fortunate officers was very
slow. He became lieutenant in 1829 and commander in 1833. His first
command in the "Childers" brig (16) was largely passed on the coast of
Spain, which was then in the midst of the convulsions of the Carlist
war. Captain Keppel had already made himself known as a good seaman. He
was engaged with the squadron stationed on the west coast of Africa to
suppress the slave trade. In 1837 he was promoted post captain, and
appointed in 1841 to the "Dido" for service in China and against the
Malay pirates, a service which he repeated in 1847, when in command of
H.M.S. "Maeander." The story of his two commands was told by himself in
two publications, _The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. "Dido" for the
Suppression of Piracy_ (1846), and in _A Visit to the Indian Archipelago
in H. M. S. "Maeander"_ (1853). The substance of these books was
afterwards incorporated into his autobiography, which was published in
1809 under the title _A Sailor's Life under four Sovereigns_. In 1853 he
was appointed to the command of the "St Jean d'Acre" of 101 guns for
service in the Crimean War. But he had no opportunity to distinguish
himself at sea in that struggle. As commander of the naval brigade
landed to co-operate in the siege of Sevastopol, he was more fortunate,
and he had an honourable share in the latter days of the siege and
reduction of the fortress. After the Crimean War he was again sent out
to China, this time in command of the "Raleigh," as commodore to serve
under Sir M. Seymour. The "Raleigh" was lost on an uncharted rock near
Hong-Kong, but three small vessels were named to act as her tenders, and
Commodore Keppel commanded in them, and with the crew of the "Raleigh,"
in the action with the Chinese at Fatshan Creek (June 1, 1857). He was
honourably acquitted for the loss of the "Raleigh," and was named to the
command of the "Alligator," which he held till his promotion to
rear-admiral. For his share in the action at Fatshan Creek he was made
K.C.B. The prevalence of peace gave Sir Henry Keppel no further chance
of active service, but he held successive commands till his retirement
from the active list in 1879, two years after he attained the rank of
Admiral of the Fleet. He died at the age of 95 on the 17th of January
1904.
KER, JOHN (1673-1726), Scottish spy, was born in Ayrshire on the 8th of
August 1673. His true name was Crawfurd, his father being Alexander
Crawfurd of Crawfurdland; but having married Anna, younger daughter of
Robert Ker, of Kersland, Ayrshire, whose only son Daniel Ker was killed
at the battle of Steinkirk in 1692, he assumed the name and arms of Ker
in 1697, after buying the family estates from his wife's elder sister.
Having become a leader among the extreme Covenanters, he made use of his
influence to relieve his pecuniary embarrassments, selling his support
at one time to the Jacobites, at another to the government, and whenever
possible to both parties at the same time. He held a licence from the
government in 1707 permitting him to associate with those whose
disloyalty was known or suspected, proving that he was at that date the
government's paid spy; and in his _Memoirs_ Ker asserts that he had a
number of other spies and agents working under his orders in different
parts of the country. He entered into correspondence with Catholic
priests and Jacobite conspirators, whose schemes, so far as he could
make himself cognisant of them, he betrayed to the government. But he
was known to be a man of the worst character, and it is improbable that
he succeeded in gaining the confidence of people of any importance. The
duchess of Gordon was for a time, it is true, one of his correspondents,
but in 1707 she had discovered him to be "a knave." He went to London in
1709, where he seems to have extracted considerable sums of money from
politicians of both parties by promising or threatening, as the case
might be, to expose Godolphin's relations with the Jacobites. In 1713,
if his own story is to be believed, business of a semi-diplomatic nature
took Ker to Vienna, where, although he failed in the principal object of
his errand, the emperor made him a present of his portrait set in
jewels. Ker also occupied his time in Vienna, he says, by gathering
information which he forwarded to the electress Sophia; and in the
following year on his way home he stopped at Hanover to give some advice
to the future king of England as to the best way to govern the English.
Although in his own opinion Ker materially assisted in placing George I.
on the English throne, his services were unrewarded, owing, he would
have us believe, to the incorruptibility of his character. Similar
ingratitude was the recompense for his revelations of the Jacobite
intentions in 1715; and as he was no more successful in making money
out of the East India Company, nor in certain commercial schemes which
engaged his ingenuity during the next few years, he died in a debtors'
prison, on the 8th of July 1726. While in the King's Bench he sold to
Edmund Curll the bookseller, a fellow-prisoner, who was serving a
sentence of five months for publishing obscene books, the manuscript of
(or possibly only the materials on which were based) the _Memoirs of
John Ker of Kersland_, which Curll published in 1726 in three parts, the
last of which appeared after Ker's death. For issuing the first part of
the _Memoirs_, which purported to make disclosures damaging to the
government, but which Curll in self-justification described as
"vindicating the memory of Queen Anne," the publisher was sentenced to
the pillory at Charing Cross; and he added to the third part of the
_Memoirs_ the indictment on which he had been convicted.
See the above-mentioned _Memoirs_ (London, 1726-1727), and in
particular the "preface" to part i.; George Lockhart, _The Lockhart
Papers_ (2 vols., London, 1817); Nathaniel Hooke, _Correspondence_,
edited by W. D. Macray (Roxburghe Club, 2 vols., London, 1870), in
which Ker is referred to under several pseudonyms, such as "Wicks,"
"Trustie," "The Cameronian Mealmonger," &c.
KERAK, a town in eastern Palestine, 10 m. E. of the southern angle of
the Lisan promontory of the Dead Sea, on the top of a rocky hill about
3000 ft. above sea-level. It stands on a platform forming an irregular
triangle with sides about 3000 ft. in length, and separated by deep
ravines from the ranges around on all sides but one. The population is
estimated at 6000 Moslems and 1800 Orthodox Greek Christians. Kerak is
identified with the Moabite town of Kir-Hareseth (destroyed by the
Hebrew-Edomite coalition, 2 Kings iii. 25), and denounced by Isaiah
under the name Kir of Moab (xv. 1), Kir-Hareseth (xvi. 7) or Kir-Heres
(xvi. 11): Jeremiah also refers to it by the last name (xxxix. 31, 36).
The modern name, in the form [Greek: Charax], appears in 2 Macc. xii.
17. Later, Kerak was the seat of the archbishop of Petra. The Latin
kings of Jerusalem, recognizing its importance as the key of the E.
Jordan region, fortified it in 1142; from 1183 it was attacked
desperately by Saladin, to whom at last it yielded in 1188. The Arabian
Ayyubite princes fortified the town, as did the Egyptian Mameluke
sultans. The fortifications were repaired by Bibars in the 13th century.
For a long time after the Turkish occupation of Palestine and Egypt it
enjoyed a semi-independence, but in 1893 a Turkish governor with a
strong garrison was established there, which has greatly contributed to
secure the safety of travellers and the general quiet of the district.
The town is an irregular congeries of flat mud-roofed houses. In the
Christian quarter is the church of St George; the mosque also is a
building of Christian origin. The town is surrounded by a wall with five
towers; entrance now is obtained through breaches in the wall, but
formerly it was accessible only by means of tunnels cut in the rocky
substratum. The castle, now used as the headquarters of the garrison and
closed to visitors, is a remarkably fine example of a crusaders'
fortress. (R. A. S. M.)
KERALA, or CHERA, the name of one of the three ancient Dravidian
kingdoms of the Tamil country of southern India, the other two being the
Chola and the Pandya. Its original territory comprised the country now
contained in the Malabar district, with Travancore and Cochin, and later
the country included in the Coimbatore district and a part of Salem. The
boundaries, however, naturally varied much from time to time. The
earliest references to this kingdom appear in the edicts of Asoka, where
it is called _Keralaputra_ (i.e. son of Kerala), a name which in a
slightly corrupt form is known to Pliny and the author of the
_Periplus_. There is evidence of a lively trade carried on by sea with
the Roman empire in the early centuries of the Christian era, but of the
political history of the Kerala kingdom nothing is known beyond a list
of rajas compiled from inscriptions, until in the 10th century the
struggle began with the Cholas, by whom it was conquered and held till
their overthrow by the Mahommedans in 1310. These in their turn were
driven out by a Hindu confederation headed by the chiefs of Vijayanagar,
and Kerala was absorbed in the Vijayanagar empire until its destruction
by the Mahommedans in 1565. For about 80 years it seems to have
preserved a precarious independence under the naiks of Madura, but in
1640 was conquered by the Adil Shah dynasty of Bijapur and in 1652
seized by the king of Mysore.
See V. A. Smith, _Early Hist. of India_, chap. xvi. (2nd ed., Oxford,
1908).
KERASUND (anc. _Choerades_, _Pharnacia_, _Cerasus_), a town on the N.
coast of Asia Minor, in the Trebizond vilayet, and the port--an exposed
roadstead--of Kara-Hissar Sharki, with which it is connected by a
carriage road. Pop. just under 10,000, Moslems being in a slight
minority. The town is situated on a rocky promontory, crowned by a
Byzantine fortress, and has a growing trade. It exports filberts (for
which product it is the centre), walnuts, hides and timber. Cerasus was
the place from which the wild cherry was introduced into Italy by
Lucullus and so to Europe (hence Fr. _cerise_, "cherry").
KÉRATRY, AUGUSTE HILARION, COMTE DE (1769-1859), French writer and
politician, was born at Rennes on the 28th of December 1769. Coming to
Paris in 1790, he associated himself with Bernardin de St Pierre. After
being twice imprisoned during the Terror he retired to Brittany, where
he devoted himself to literature till 1814. In 1818 he returned to Paris
as deputy for Finistère, and sat in the Chamber till 1824, becoming one
of the recognized liberal leaders. He was re-elected in 1827, took an
active part in the establishment of the July monarchy, was appointed a
councillor of state (1830), and in 1837 was made a peer of France. After
the _coup d'état_ of 1851 he retired from public life. Among his
publications were _Contes et Idylles_ (1791); _Lysus et Cydippe_, a poem
(1801); _Inductions morales et physiologiques_ (1817); _Documents pour
servir à l'histoire de France_ (1820); _Du Beau dans les arts
d'imitation_ (1822); _Le Dernier des Beaumanoir_ (1824). His last work,
_Clarisse_ (1854), a novel, was written when he was eighty-five. He died
at Port-Marly on the 7th of November 1859.
His son, comte Emile de Kératry (1832- ), became deputy for Finistère
in 1869, and strongly supported the war with Germany in 1870. He was in
Paris during part of the siege, but escaped in a balloon, and joined
Gambetta. In 1871 Thiers appointed him to the prefecture, first of the
Haute-Garonne, and subsequently of the Bouches-du-Rhône, but he resigned
in the following year. He is the author of _La Contre-guérilla française
au Mexique_ (1868); _L'Élévation et la chute de l'empereur Maximilien_
(1867); _Le Quatre-septembre et le gouvernement de la défense nationale_
(1872); _Mourad V._ (1878), and some volumes of memories.
KERBELA, or MESHED-HOSAIN, a town of Asiatic Turkey, the capital of a
sanjak of the Bagdad vilayet, situated on the extreme western edge of
the alluvial river plain, about 60 m. S.S.W. of Bagdad and 20 m. W. of
the Euphrates, from which a canal extends almost to the town. The
surrounding territory is fertile and well cultivated, especially in
fruit gardens and palm-groves. The newer parts of the city are built
with broad streets and sidewalks, presenting an almost European
appearance. The inner town, surrounded by a dilapidated brick wall, at
the gates of which octroi duties are still levied, is a dirty Oriental
city, with the usual narrow streets. Kerbela owes its existence to the
fact that Hosain, a son of 'Ali, the fourth caliph, was slain here by
the soldiers of Yazid, the rival aspirant to the caliphate, on the 10th
of October A.D. 680 (see CALIPHATE, sec. B, § 2). The most important
feature of the town is the great shrine of Hosain, containing the tomb
of the martyr, with its golden dome and triple minarets, two of which
are glided. Kerbela is a place of pilgrimage of the Shi'ite Moslems, and
is only less sacred to them than Meshed 'Ali and Mecca. Some 200,000
pilgrims from the Shi'ite portions of Islam are said to journey annually
to Kerbela, many of them carrying the bones of their relatives to be
buried in its sacred soil, or bringing their sick and aged to die there
in the odour of sanctity. The mullahs, who fix the burial fees, derive
an enormous revenue from the faithful. Formerly Kerbela was a
self-governing hierarchy and constituted an inviolable sanctuary for
criminals; but in 1843 the Turkish government undertook to deprive the
city of some of these liberties and to enforce conscription. The
Kerbelese resisted, and Kerbela was bombarded (hence the ruined
condition of the old walls) and reduced with great slaughter. Since then
it has formed an integral part of the Turkish administration of Irak.
The enormous influx of pilgrims naturally creates a brisk trade in
Kerbela and the towns along the route from Persia to that place and
beyond to Nejef. The population of Kerbela, necessarily fluctuating, is
estimated at something over 60,000, of whom the principal part are
Shi'ites, chiefly Persians, with a goodly mixture of British Indians. No
Jews or Christians are allowed to reside there.
See Chodzko, _Théâtre persan_ (Paris, 1878); J. P. Peters, _Nippur_
(1897). (J. P. Pe.)
KERCH, or KERTCH, a seaport of S. Russia, in the government of Taurida,
on the Strait of Kerch or Yenikale, 60 m. E.N.E. of Theodosia, in 45°
21´ N. and 36° 30´ E. Pop. (1897), 31,702. It stands on the site of the
ancient _Panticapaeum_, and, like most towns built by the ancient Greek
colonists in this part of the world, occupies a beautiful situation,
clustering round the foot and climbing up the sides of the hill (called
after Mithradates) on which stood the ancient citadel or acropolis. The
church of St John the Baptist, founded in 717, is a good example of the
early Byzantine style. That of Alexander Nevsky was formerly the Kerch
museum of antiquities, founded in 1825. The more valuable objects were
subsequently removed to the Hermitage at St Petersburg, while those that
remained at Kerch were scattered during the English occupation in the
Crimean War. The existing museum is a small collection in a private
house. Among the products of local industry are leather, tobacco,
cement, beer, aerated waters, lime, candles and soap. Fishing is carried
on, and there are steam saw-mills and flour-mills. A rich deposit of
iron ore was discovered close to Kerch in 1895, and since then mining
and blasting have been actively prosecuted. The mineral mud-baths, one
of which is in the town itself and the other beside Lake Chokrak (9 m.
distant), are much frequented. Notwithstanding the deepening of the
strait, so that ships are now able to enter the Sea of Azov, Kerch
retains its importance for the export trade in wheat, brought thither by
coasting vessels. Grain, fish, linseed, rapeseed, wool and hides are
also exported. About 6 m. N.E. are the town and old Turkish fortress of
Yenikale, administratively united with Kerch. Two and a half miles to
the south are strong fortified works defending the entrance to the Sea
of Azov.
The Greek colony of Panticapaeum was founded about the middle of the 6th
century B.C., by the town of Miletus. From about 438 B.C. till the
conquest of this region by Mithradates the Great, king of Pontus, about
100 B.C., the town and territory formed the kingdom of the Bosporus,
ruled over by an independent dynasty. Phanaces, the son of Mithradates,
became the founder of a new line under the protection of the Romans,
which continued to exist till the middle of the 4th century A.D., and
extended its power over the maritime parts of Tauris. After that the
town--which had already begun to be known as Bospora--passed
successively into the hands of the Eastern empire, of the Khazars, and
of various barbarian tribes. In 1318, the Tatars, who had come into
possession in the previous century, ceded the town to the Genoese, who
soon raised it into new importance as a commercial centre. They usually
called the place Cerchio, a corruption of the Russian name K'rtchev
(whence Kerch), which appears in the 11th century inscription of
Tmutarakan (a Russian principality at the north foot of the Caucasus).
Under the Turks, whose rule dates from the end of the 15th century,
Kerch was a military port; and as such it plays a part in the
Russo-Turkish wars. Captured by the Russians under Dolgorukov in 1771,
it was ceded to them along with Yenikale by the peace of
Kuchuk-Kainarji, and it became a centre of Russian naval activity. Its
importance was greatly impaired by the rise of Odessa and Taganrog; and
in 1820 the fortress was dismantled. Kerch suffered severely during the
Crimean War.
Archaeologically Kerch is of particular interest, the kurgans or
sepulchral mounds of the town and vicinity having yielded a rich
variety of the most beautiful works of art. Since 1825 a large number
of tombs have been opened. In the Altun or Zolotai-oba (Golden Mound)
was found a great stone vault similar in style to an Egyptian pyramid;
and within, among many objects of minor note, were golden dishes
adorned with griffins and beautiful arabesques. In the Kul-oba, or
Mound of Cinders (opened in 1830-1831), was a similar tomb, in which
were found what would appear to be the remains of one of the kings of
Bosporus, of his queen, his horse and his groom. The ornaments and
furniture were of the most costly kind; the king's bow and buckler
were of gold; his very whip intertwined with gold; the queen had
golden diadems, necklace and breast-jewels, and at her feet lay a
golden vase. In the Pavlovskoi kurgan (opened in 1858) was the tomb of
a Greek lady, containing among other articles of dress and decoration
a pair of fine leather boots (a unique discovery) and a beautiful vase
on which is painted the return of Persephone from Hades and the
setting out of Triptolemus for Attica. In a neighbouring tomb was what
is believed to be "the oldest Greek mural painting which has come down
to us," dating probably from the 4th century B.C. Among the minor
objects discovered in the kurgans perhaps the most noteworthy are the
fragments of engraved boxwood, the only examples known of the art
taught by the Sicyonian painter Pamphilus.
Very important finds of old Greek art continue to be made in the
neighbourhood, as well as at Tamañ, on the east side of the Strait of
Kerch. The catacombs on the northern slope of Mithradates Hill, of
which nearly 200 have been explored since 1859, possess considerable
interest, not only for the relics of old Greek art which some of them
contain (although most were plundered in earlier times), but
especially as material for the history and ethnography of the
Cimmerian Bosporus. In 1890 the first Christian catacomb bearing a
distinct date (491) was discovered. Its walls were covered with Greek
inscriptions and crosses.
See H. D. Seymour's _Russia on the Black Sea and Sea of Azoff_
(London, 1855); J. B. Telfer, _The Crimea_ (London, 1876); P. Bruhn,
_Tchernomore, 1852-1877_ (Odessa, 1878); Gilles, _Antiquités du
Bosphore Cimmérien_ (1854); D. Macpherson, _Antiquities of Kertch_
(London, 1857); _Compte rendu de la Commission Imp. Archéologique_ (St
Petersburg); L. Stephani, _Die Alterthümer vom Kertsch_ (St
Petersburg, 1880); C. T. Newton, _Essays on Art and Archaeology_
(London, 1880); _Reports_ of the [Russian] Imp. Archaeological
Commission; _Izvestia_ (Bulletin) of the Archives Commission for
Taurida; _Antiquités du Bosphore Cimmérien, conservées au Musée
Impérial de l'Ermitage_ (St Petersburg, 1854); _Inscriptiones antiquae
orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini graecae et latinae_, with a preface
by V. V. Latyshev (St Petersburg, 1890); _Materials for the
Archaeology of Russia_, published by the Imp. Arch. Commission (No. 6,
St Petersburg, 1891). (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
KERCKHOVEN, JAN POLYANDER VAN DEN (1568-1646), Dutch Protestant divine,
was born at Metz, in 1568. He became French preacher at Dort in 1591,
and afterwards succeeded Franz Gomarus as professor of theology at
Leiden. He was invited by the States General of Holland to revise the
Dutch translation of the Bible, and it was he who edited the canons of
the synod of Dort (1618-1619).
His many published works include _Responsio ad sophismata A.
Cocheletii doctoris surbonnistae_ (1610), _Dispute contre l'adoration
des reliques des Saincts trespassés_ (1611), _Explicatio somae
prophetae_ (1625).
KERGUELEN ISLAND, KERGUELEN'S LAND, or DESOLATION ISLAND, an island in
the Southern Ocean, to the S.E. of the Cape of Good Hope, and S.W. of
Australia, and nearly half-way between them. Kerguelen lies between 48°
39´ and 49° 44´ S. and 68° 42´ and 70° 35´ E. Its extreme length is
about 85 m., but the area is only about 1400 sq. m. The island is
throughout mountainous, presenting from the sea in some directions the
appearance of a series of jagged peaks. The various ridges and mountain
masses are separated by steep-sided valleys, which run down to the sea,
forming deep fjords, so that no part of the interior is more than 12 m.
from the sea. The chief summits are Mounts Ross (6120 ft.), Richards
(4000), Crozier (3251), Wyville Thomson (3160), Hooker (2600), Moseley
(2400). The coast-line is extremely irregular, and the fjords, at least
on the north, east and south, form a series of well-sheltered harbours.
As the prevailing winds are westerly, the safest anchorage is on the
north-east. Christmas Harbour on the north and Royal Sound on the south
are noble harbours, the latter with a labyrinth of islets interspersed
over upwards of 20 m. of land-locked waters. The scenery is generally
magnificent. A district of considerable extent in the centre of the
island is occupied by snowfields, whence glaciers descend east and west
to the sea. The whole island, exclusive of the snowfields, abounds in
freshwater lakes and pools in the hills and lower ground. Hidden deep
mudholes are frequent.
Kerguelen Island is of undoubted volcanic origin, the prevailing rock
being basaltic lavas, intersected occasionally by dikes, and an active
volcano and hot springs are said to exist in the south-west of the
island. Judging from the abundant fossil remains of trees, the island
must have been thickly clothed with woods and other vegetation of
which it has no doubt been denuded by volcanic action and submergence,
and possibly by changes of climate. It presents evidences of having
been subjected to powerful glaciation, and to subsequent immersion and
immense denudation. The soundings made by the "Challenger" and
"Gazelle" and the affinities which in certain respects exist between
the islands, seem to point to the existence at one time of an
extensive land area in this quarter, of which Kerguelen, Prince
Edward's Islands, the Crozets, St Paul and Amsterdam are the remains.
The Kerguelen plateau rises in many parts to within 1500 fathoms of
the surface of the sea. Beds of coal and of red earth are found in
some places. The summits of the flat-topped hills about Betsy Cove, in
the south-east of the island, are formed of caps of basalt.
According to Sir J. D. Hooker the vegetation of Kerguelen Island is of
great antiquity; and may have originally reached it from the American
continent; it has no affinities with Africa. The present climate is
not favourable to permanent vegetation; the island lies within the
belt of rain at all seasons of the year, and is reached by no drying
winds; its temperature is kept down by the surrounding vast expanse of
sea, and it lies within the line of the cold Antarctic drift. The
temperature, however, is equable. The mean annual temperature is about
39° F., while the summer temperature has been observed to approach
70°. Tempests and squalls are frequent, and the weather is rarely
calm. On the lower slopes of the mountains a rank vegetation exists,
which, from the conditions mentioned, is constantly saturated with
moisture. A rank grass, _Festuca Cookii_, grows thickly in places up
to 300 ft., with _Azorella_, _Cotula plumosa_, &c. Sir J. D. Hooker
enumerated twenty-one species of flowering plants, and seven of ferns,
lycopods, and _Characeae_; at least seventy-four species of mosses,
twenty-five of _Hepaticae_, and sixty-one of lichens are known, and
there are probably many more. Several of the marine and many species
of freshwater algae are peculiar to the island. The characteristic
feature of the vegetation, the Kerguelen's Land cabbage, was formerly
abundant, but has been greatly reduced by rabbits introduced on to the
island. Fur-seals are still found in Kerguelen, though their numbers
have been reduced by reckless slaughter. The sea-elephant and
sea-leopard are characteristic. Penguins of various kinds are
abundant; a teal (_Querquedula Eatoni_) peculiar to Kerguelen and the
Crozets is also found in considerable numbers, and petrels, especially
the giant petrel (_Ossifraga gigantea_), skuas, gulls, sheath-bills
(_Chionis minor_), albatross, terns, cormorants and Cape pigeons
frequent the island. There is a considerable variety of insects, many
of them with remarkable peculiarities of structure, and with a
predominance of forms incapable of flying.
The island was discovered by the French navigator, Yves Joseph de
Kerguelen-Trémarec, a Breton noble (1745-1797), on the 13th of February
1772, and partly surveyed by him in the following year. He was one of
those explorers who had been attracted by the belief in a rich southern
land, and this island, the South France of his first discovery, was
afterwards called by him Desolation Land in his disappointment. Captain
Cook visited the island in 1776, and, among other expeditions, the
"Challenger" spent some time here, and its staff visited and surveyed
various parts of it in January 1874. It was occupied from October 1874
to February 1875 by the expeditions sent from England, Germany and the
United States to observe the transit of Venus. The German South Polar
expedition in 1901-1902 established a meteorological and magnetic
station at Royal Sound, under Dr Enzensperger, who died there. In
January 1893 Kerguelen was annexed by France, and its commercial
exploitation was assigned to a private company.
See Y. J. de Kerguelen-Trémarec, _Relation de deux voyages dans les
mers australes_ (Paris, 1782); Narratives of the Voyages of Captain
Cook and the "Challenger" Expedition; _Phil. Trans._, vol. 168,
containing account of the collections made in Kerguelen by the British
transit of Venus expedition in 1874-1875; Lieutard, "Mission aux îles
Kerguelen," &c., _Annales hydrographiques_ (Paris, 1893).
KERGUELEN'S LAND CABBAGE, in botany, _Pringlea antiscorbutica_ (natural
order Cruciferae), a plant resembling in habit, and belonging to the
same family as, the common cabbage (_Brassica oleracea_). The
cabbage-like heads of leaves abound in a pale yellow highly pungent
essential oil, which gives the plant a peculiar flavour but renders it
extremely wholesome. It was discovered by Captain Cook during his first
voyage, but the first account of it was published by (Sir) Joseph Hooker
in _The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage_ of the "Erebus" and "Terror" in
1839-1843. During the stay of the latter expedition on the island, daily
use was made of this vegetable either cooked by itself or boiled with
the ship's beef, pork or pea-soup. Hooker observes of it, "This is
perhaps the most interesting plant procured during the whole of the
voyage performed in the Antarctic Sea, growing as it does upon an island
the remotest of any from a continent, and yielding, besides this
esculent, only seventeen other flowering plants."
KERKUK, or QERQUQ, the chief town of a sanjak in the Mosul vilayet of
Asiatic Turkey, situated among the foot hills of the Kurdistan Mountains
at an elevation of about 1100 ft. on both banks of the Khassa Chai, a
tributary of the Tigris, known in its lower course as Adhem. Pop.
estimated at 12,000 to 15,000, chiefly Mahommedan Kurds. Owing to its
position at the junction of several routes, Kerkuk has a brisk transit
trade in hides, Persian silks and cottons, colouring materials, fruit
and timber; but it owes its principal importance to its petroleum and
naphtha springs. There are also natural warm springs at Kerkuk, used to
supply baths and reputed to have valuable medical properties. In the
neighbourhood of the city is a burning mountain, locally famous for many
centuries. Kerkuk is evidently an ancient site, the citadel standing
upon an artificial mound 130 ft. high. It was a metropolitan see of the
Chaldean Christians. There is a Jewish quarter beneath the citadel, and
the reputed sarcophagi of Daniel and the Hebrew children are shown in
one of the mosques. (J. P. Pe.)
KERMADEC, a small group of hilly islands in the Pacific, about 30° S.,
178° W., named from D'Entrecasteaux's captain, Huon Kermadec, in 1791.
They are British possessions. The largest of the group is Raoul or
Sunday Island, 20 m. in circumference, 1600 ft. high, and thickly
wooded. The flora and fauna belong for the most part to those of New
Zealand, on which colony the islands are also politically dependent,
having been annexed in 1887.
KERMAN (the ancient _Karmania_), a province of Persia, bounded E. by
Seistan and Baluchistan, S. by Baluchistan and Fars, W. by Fars, and N.
by Yezd and Khorasan. It is of very irregular shape, expanding in the
north to Khorasan and gradually contracting in the south to a narrow
wedge between Fars and Baluchistan; the extreme length between Seistan
and Fars (E. and W.) is about 400 m., the greatest breadth (N. and S.)
from south of Yezd to the neighbourhood of Bander Abbasi about 300 m.,
and the area is estimated at about 60,000 sq. m. Kerman is generally
described as consisting of two parts, an uninhabitable desert region in
the north and a habitable mountainous region in the south, but recent
explorations require this view to be considerably modified. There are
mountains and desert tracts in all parts, while much of what appears on
maps as forming the western portion of the great Kerman desert consists
of the fertile uplands of Kuhbanan, Raver and others stretching along
the eastern base of the lofty range which runs from Yezd south-east to
Khabis. West of and parallel to this range are two others, one
culminating north-west of Bam in the Kuh Hazar (14,700 ft.), the other
continued at about the same elevation under the name of the Jamal Bariz
(also Jebel Bariz) south-eastward to Makran. These chains traverse
fertile districts dividing them into several longitudinal valleys of
considerable length, but not averaging more than 12 m. in width. Snow
lies on them for a considerable part of the year, feeding the springs
and canals by means of which large tracts in this almost rainless region
in summer are kept under cultivation. Still farther west the Kuh Dina
range is continued from Fars, also in a south-easterly direction to
Bashakird beyond Bander Abbasi. Between the south-western highlands and
the Jamal Bariz there is some arid and unproductive land, but the true
desert of Kerman lies mainly in the north and north-east, where it
merges northwards in the great desert "Lut," which stretches into
Khorasan.[1] These southern deserts differ from the kavir of central
Persia mainly in three respects: they are far less saline, are more
sandy and drier, and present in some places tracts of 80 to 100 miles
almost absolutely destitute of vegetation. Yet they are crossed by
well-known tracks running from Kerman eastwards and north-eastwards to
Seistan and Khorasan and frequently traversed by caravans. It appears
that these sandy wastes are continually encroaching on the fertile
districts, and this is the case even in Narmashir, which is being
invaded by the sands of the desolate plains extending thence
north-westwards to Bam. There are also some _kefeh_ or salt swamps
answering to the kavir in the north, but occurring only in isolated
depressions and nowhere of any great extent. The desert of Kerman lies
about 1000 ft., or less, above the sea, apparently on nearly the same
level as the Lut, from which it cannot be geographically separated. The
climate, which varies much with the relief of the land, has the
reputation of being unhealthy, because the cool air from the hills is
usually attended by chills and agues. Still many of the upland valleys
enjoy a genial and healthy climate. The chief products are cotton, gums,
dates of unrivalled flavour from the southern parts, and wool, noted for
its extreme softness, and the soft underhair of goats (_kurk_), which
latter are used in the manufacture of the Kerman shawls, which in
delicacy of texture yield only to those of Kashmir, while often
surpassing them in design, colour and finish. Besides woollen goods
(shawls, carpets, &c.) Kerman exports mainly cotton, grain and dates,
receiving in return from India cotton goods, tea, indigo, china, glass,
sugar, &c. Wheat and barley are scarce. Bander Abbasi is the natural
outport; but, since shipping has shown a preference for Bushire farther
west, the trade of Kerman has greatly fallen off.
For administrative purposes the province is divided into nineteen
districts, one being the capital of the same name with its immediate
neighbourhood (_humeh_); the others are Akta and Urzu; Anar; Bam and
Narmashir; Bardsir; Jiruft; Khabis; Khinaman; Kubenan (Kuhbanan);
Kuhpayeh; Pariz; Rafsinjan; Rahbur; Raver; Rayin; Rudbar and Bashakird;
Sardu; Sirjan; Zerend. The inhabitants number about 700,000, nearly
one-third being nomads. (A. H.-S.)