lives in the top of pine trees and eats the | seeds from the cones, which it holds in the foot. NUTCRACKER. Nuthatch, a family of birds having a sharp, straight bill, short legs, with strong hind toe and hooked claws. It runs up and down the bark of a tree NUTHATCH. looking for insects, or lives upon coneseeds and nuts, which it finds in a crevice of the bark and hammers with the bill until the shell is broken. The bird has a blue-slate color on the back, grayish-brown wings and a slate-gray tail, with some black, white-tipped and barred feathers, and is about 5%1⁄2 inches long. The seventeen known species are NYMPHS found in all southern parts of Asia, Europe and North America, and build their nests in holes in trees of sticks, cone scales and leaves. Nutmeg. See SPICES. Nyassaland, the name given to the country lying immediately south, west and northwest of Lake Nyassa, in East Africa, has no outside boundaries but is the land in which the African Lakes company of Glasgow operates in connection with the missionaries of the Church of Scotland, with principal stations at Blantyre and Bandawe. The company and mission stations were founded on the recommendation of Dr. Livingstone to check the Arab slave trade. Some trouble has been caused of late by the claim of sovereignty made by Portugal. Nyassa or Nyanja, the most southern of the great east African lakes, is 260 miles from Tanganyika and 400 miles from the east coast. It is 1,570 feet above sea level, very deep, rapidly descending from its high and rocky shores, and measures about 350 miles long by 40 miles broad from east to west. It was known by the Portuguese as Maravi in the 17th century, but was first navigated by Livingstone and its situation exactly determined in 1859. Nymphs, of Greek mythology, were the female divinities of the lower rank, inhabiting the sea, streams, groves, meadows and pastures, caves, fountains, hills and trees. Of their different classes were Oceanides, nymphs of the great sea; Nereids, of the inner sea; Potameides, of the rivers; Naiads, of fountains, brooks, lakes and wells, and Dryads, of the trees and forests, who were supposed to die with the trees in which they lived. They were the goddesses of moisture, had power of prophecy and guarded the nourishment and growth of infants. Many of the most beautiful Grecian sculptures are those of nymphs. A C A OAK-OASIS. Oak, a large class of trees and shrubs. There are about three hundred species, found mostly in temperate regions, and more numerous in America than Europe. Some species are evergreen, as the live oak of the southern states, and the evergreen oak of California. The different kinds vary very much, some having the leaves very deeply indented, others with straight-edged leaves; some produce their fruit every year, and others only every other year; while some have the OAK BRANCH IN FRUIT. fruit growing on stems, and in others it grows directly on the tree. They are all known, however, by their fruit, the acorn; a nut set in a cup. Among the most common kinds are the white oak, black oak, scarlet oak, red oak, willow oak, black scrub oak, live oak, etc. European varieties include also the Barbary oak, evergreen oak, Italian oak, cork oak, dwarf chestnut oak, the gall oak and the manna oak. The species most common in Great Britain is one like our white oak, with smaller leaves. The oak furnishes a large part of our best timber, ranking next to the white pine in the variety of its uses. The wood of many varieties is very tough and durable, and is used in shipbuilding, carriage making, for barrels and agricultural implements, and as splints it is used for baskets and chair seats. The bark yields tannin in large quantities, and is used in medicine and in tanneries. The acorns are used for feeding hogs, and in Turkey are ground and made into a sweetmeat. The oak is a very long-lived tree, especially the British oak, some of which are probably 1,000 years old. The "King Oak " in Windsor Forest is said to have shaded William the Conqueror. The tree is of slow growth, and plantations of it are not of marketable value for some time. Oak Apples, called also nutgalls and gall nuts, are round balls about as large as an apple, found on the leaves and stems of oak trees, and are produced by the action of insects. The insect pierces the plant, and places an egg with a small quantity of poisonous fluid in the opening. The gall or apple grows rapidly and is fully formed before the egg hatches. The insect remains in the apple during its second stage, and finally as a gall-fly eats its way into the world. The nuts are used in making ink and tannin. Oakland, a city of California, is on the east side of San Francisco bay, 41⁄2 miles from San Francisco. It is a beautiful city, well shaded and watered, with many fine residences-many of them the homes of the business men of San Francisco. The Congregational Theological Seminary and a Catholic college are established here, and at Berkeley, four miles north, is the State University. The city manufactures cotton and woolen goods, jute, iron, nails, shoes and pottery, and has large canning factories. Population, 48,682. Oasis (o'-a-sis), a fertile spot in the desert, due to the presence of wells or underground springs. The French have made oases in the Algerian deserts by sinking artesian wells. Some of these spots in the African deserts are large OATS 894 OBI enough to be inhabited, and grow crops | feet high. See Egyptian Obelisks, by of rice and millet, and are shaded with Gorringe. palms. Oats, a large class of grasses, the seed of which forms one of our bestknown grains. It is probably a native of Asia. It grows best in cold countries. There are many varieties, as the Hungarian, Chinese, short oat and wild oat. Some varieties are cultivated for hay, and some are looked upon as weeds. The grain is used whole, or crushed, or in meal. It contains starch, sugar, gluten, albumen and a substance called avenin, very much like the casein of milk, from which cheese is made. It is thus a very nutritious food, and is coming into general use. In Scotland it is the great food, used in cakes and porridge. According to Dr. Johnson's wellknown definition: "A grain used to feed horses and Scotchmen." It is largely used for feeding horses, and the straw is also used for fodder. It is one of the important crops of the United States. Ober-Ammergau (oʻ-ber-am'-ergow), a village in Bavaria, 45 miles south of Munich. It is celebrated as the place where the famous miracle play, representing the Passion of our Saviour, is played once in ten years. It is the only survival of the old miracle plays, being excepted from the order abolishing them in Europe in 1779. In 1633, in gratitude for an escape from the plague which devastated the surrounding country, the people of the village vowed to perform this play once in ten years. The actors, in number 350, and the chorus of eighty members are all taken from the villagers. It is played for twelve Sundays, in a large theater holding 5,000 spectators, many of whom are visitors from all parts of Europe. See Homes of Ober-Ammergau, by Greatorex. Oberlin, a town in Ohio, near Lake Erie, 34 miles west of Cleveland. It is a college town with some factories and business blocks. It is the seat of Oberlin College, which was founded in 1833, and for sometime was very unpopular because of its receiving colored students. It is now one of the large colleges of the country, with over fifty instructors and about 1,500 students of both sexes, with some very fine buildPopulation, 4,330. Oberlin, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, & German minister noted for his benevolence, was born at Strasburg, Germany, Aug. 31, 1740. He became the Protestant pastor of Waldbach, a village in a wild, mountainous district of Alsace. The country had suffered terribly in the thirty years' war, and the people were very poor and ignorant. Oberlin gave his life to elevating them, introducing better modes of farming, and some manufactures, making roads and bridges, founding libraries and schools, among them the first infant schools. The population increased from 500 to 3,000 during his life. Though laboring in a small sphere, his reputation for philanthropy has extended over the world. He died June 1, 1826. See Life by Butler. Obadiah, one of the twelve "minor prophets," of whom almost nothing is known. The book that bears the name was written probably about 587 B. C., and is in two divisions, one prophesying destruction to Edom, and the other foretelling the restoration of Israel. See Minor Prophets, by Farrar. Obelisk, a four-sided monumentings. of stone with a pointed top. They have four faces, and are broadest at the base. The height varies from a few inches to 100 feet. These monuments were used by the Egyptians at the entrances of their temples, probably to record the honors and triumphs of their kings. They are covered with inscriptions in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, or picture writing. They are very ancient, going back to the 4th dynasty in Egypt, though the larger part date from the 18th and 19th dynasties. Two large ones, which stood at Heliopolis, were carried by Rameses II., one of the Egyptian kings, to Alexandria, and have been called Cleopatra's Needles. One of these was erected on the Thames embankment at London in 1878, and the other, presented by the khedive of Egypt to the United States, is in Central Park, New York. There are other of these Egyptian obelisks at Rome, Florence, Berlin and Paris. The Washington monument, finished in 1885 at the city of Washington, is an obelisk, and the largest in the world. It is 55 feet square at the base and 555 Obi (o-be) or Ob is the great river of western Siberia. It rises in two branches in the Altai mountains in the Chinese dominions, and flows north 2,120 miles, into the Gulf of Ob in the Arctic Ocean. It is very little used for navigation, but with the growth of the country will probably become one of the great water routes for commerce. Observatory, a building erected for the study of astronomy and meteorology and supplied with the instruments needed. The most important work carried on in observatories is the studying of the movements of the sun, moon and stars, which is done by means of large telescopes, with other instruments such as the transit, clock, circle, barometer, chronometer for determining and reckoning these motions. These studies are assisted now by the use of photography and the spectroscope. National observatories are also usually charged with the distribution of time signals, the Greenwich observatory sending out the time by telegraph to more than 600 towns. In the United States the Western Union Telegraph Company has a fine system of synchronized clocks, which are daily regulated from Washington. The Babylonians and Egyptians had the most ancient observatories. Among famous European ones, is that of Tycho Brahé, founded in 1576 near Copenhagen; Sir William Herschel's, near Windsor, England, where the most of modern discoveries have been made; Greenwich observatory in England, founded in 1675, the best known in the world; and one at St. Petersburg, founded by the emperor Nicholas. The first observatory built in the United States was that of Williams College, in 1836. Nearly every large college has its observatory, and there are several national ones; the Washington observatory, that of Harvard, and the Lick observatory are among the larger ones. The lens of the telescope in the Lick observatory is the largest ever made. The highest observatory in the world is on Mont Blanc, 14,470 feet high. Obsidian, a natural glass, a variety of lava. It is hard, brittle, with a glassy luster, partially transparent and sharp edges that cut like glass. It is black, dark-gray, green, red, brown, striped or spotted, a specimen usually having but one of these various colors. It is used for jewelry and ornamental articles, and in early times was employed for arrowheads, knives and mirrors. It is found in Iceland, the Lipari Islands, Vesuvius, Sardinia, Hungary, Spain, Mexico and South America. Ocelot (o'-ce-lot), a class of animals found only in America, where it ranges from Arkansas to Patagonia. It is about the size of a cat, belonging to the same class, the largest ones being about three feet long. It is usually reddish-brown O'CONNELL 66 OCELOT. O'Connell, DANIEL, the Irish liberator," was born at Carhen, in Ireland, Aug. 6, 1775. He was brought up by an uncle, and studied in France at the College of Douay, from which he was driven to England by the breaking out of the revolution. He was admitted to the Irish bar in 1794 and became famous as a counsel, the "counselor " being one of the titles by which he was known among his followers. His large practice, worth, he said, $35,000 a year, was sacrificed for his country, when he took a leading part in Irish politics. He was head of the Catholic party and contended for the admission of Catholics to parliament, which he secured in 1829. Noted for his fierce attacks on his opponents, he received several challenges to duels, but fought only one, in which he unfortunately killed his antagonist. He settled a pension on the widow, and vowed never to fight again. In 1823 the Catholic association formed by him became very powerful, with a large income. This was followed by a new political society called "The Friends of Ireland of all Religious Persuasions," which, when suppressed, was followed by a succession of others under new names. He entered parliament in 1829, supporting the whig party during the reform struggle, advocating free trade in corn, negro emancipation, the repeal of the laws against the Jews, and universal suffrage. He believed that Ireland would never have her rights until the act of union with Great Britain should be repealed, but in all his efforts to accomplish it, and to arouse the Irish nation, he was careful not to use force, or allow anything criminal. "He who commits a crime adds strength to the enemy," and "No political change whatever is worth the shedding of a single drop of human blood," were sayings of his. One of the greatest of orators, his remarkable speeches in parliament, one of which lasted for seven hours, were only equaled by his popular addresses throughout Ireland. In 1840 he founded his famous Repeal association, the members of which paid from $50 to 25 cents annual fees, which in 1843 had an income of over $200,000. The country was thoroughly aroused, O'Connell traveling in one year over 5,000 miles, and addressing the monster meetings that were held everywhere. The largest one held on the Hill of Tara, Aug. 15, 1843, was attended by 750,000 people. A great meeting appointed for Sunday, Oct. 5, 1843, was prevented by the English government, which was now alarmed, and had sent 35,000 men into Ireland. In 1844 O'Connell, with his son and five others, were tried for sedition and sentenced to imprisonment for one year, and a fine of $10,000, and though the house of lords soon set aside the verdict, the fourteen weeks he was in prison brought on the disease of which he died. The new party in Ireland, "Young Ireland," now separated from O'Connell because of his unwillingness to use force in obtaining the independence of his country, withdrawing from the association. The potato famine followed, and sick with the sight of the suffering of his country, sad with the consciousness of failure, and worn out with a struggle with disease, he left Ireland for Rome, longing to die there, but reached only Genoa, where he died May 15, 1847. His heart at his own request was carried to Rome, and his body buried in Dublin, at the base of a tower 165 feet high. "Grattan sat by the cradle of his country and followed her hearse: it was left for me to sound the resurrection trumpet, and to show that she was not dead but sleeping" is his own verdict on his work for Ireland. See Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, by Lecky; O'Connell in the "Statesmen" series; Life by his son John O'Connell. Oconto, a town in Wisconsin, on Greenbay, at the mouth of the Oconto river. It has large sawmills, and a large trade in pine lumber. Population, 5,221. Octavia, the sister of the Emperor Augustus, was the wife of Mark Antony, whom she married in 40 B. c. to secure his reconciliation to her brother. Though she was noted for her beauty, her noble disposition and womanly virtues, Antony forsook her in a few years ODER for Cleopatra. In 32 B. c. war broke out between Antony and Augustus, and he sent Octavia a divorce. She showed her noble character by caring for the children of Cleopatra with her own after the death of Antony. She died 11 B. C. Octavian. See AUGUSTUS. October, from the Latin "octo," meaning eight, was the eighth month of the year in Rome, but became the tenth when Numa changed the beginning of the year to the first of January. There were many attempts made by the Roman senate to change the name. Octopus (oc'-to-pus), a variety of cuttlefishes with eight arms. They live near the shore, lurking among the rocks, and feed on small sea animals. There are other related classes that are sometimes called by the same name. Some of these are very large, the arms or tentacles measuring from 8 to 16 feet. There is also a gigantic ten-armed variety, one specimen of which was exhibited with a head and body 91⁄2 feet long and arms 30 feet long. By nature they are timid, and are the prey of other fishes, though the larger ones may act on the defensive at times. Their flesh is used for food and as bait. They are reddish in color usually, though their color changes with the temper of the animal, which has also the power of coloring the water around it by an inky discharge. The eggs in great numbers are attached to a common stalk which is glued to the rocks, and guarded by the female. The octopus or devilfish in Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea, is a fanciful creation. See MOLLUSKS. Oder, one of the main rivers of Germany, rises in Moravia, crosses Silesia, |