WASIUM. 



WHATELY, RICHARD. 



845 



oramended the calling of a convention to alter 

 the State constitution so as to abolish slavery 

 forever. In December the Legislature passed 

 an act directing that a convention should be 

 held at Alexandria on the 13th of February, 

 1864, to amend the constitution and prohibit 

 slavery in the counties of Accomac, Northamp- 

 ton, Princess Ann, Elizabeth City, and York, 

 including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth. 

 None but loyal citizens who had not assisted 

 the rebels since January 1st, 1863, were allowed 

 to vote, and any one whose vote might be 

 challenged was required to take an oath to 

 support the constitution, and to declare that he 

 had not in any way given aid and comfort to 

 the enemy. In December, J. C. McLeod (a 

 native Virginian) was elected to Congress from 

 the 37th district. 



VIRGINIA, WEST. The constitutional con- 

 vention of West Virginia met during the month 

 of February, and, among other important acts, 

 adopted a resolution asking Congress to make 

 an appropriation to aid West Virginia in eman- 

 cipating her slaves. 



On the 26th of March an election was held 

 at which the "Willey amendment" was al- 

 most unanimously ratified. The effect of this 

 amendment was to strike out from the consti- 

 tution the clause excluding free negroes from 

 the State, and to insert in place thereof certain 

 provisions relative to freeing the slaves. 



On the 20th of April the President issued 

 a proclamation declaring that the State had 



complied with the required conditions. An 

 election of State officers was held in May, 

 and the following unconditional Union can- 

 didates were chosen by a vote of 80,000, 

 without opposition : governor, Arthur I. Bore- 

 man ; secretary of State, J. E. Boyers ; treas- 

 urer, Campbell Tarr; auditor, Samuel Crane; 

 attorney-general, A. B. Caldwell ; judges of 

 court of appeals, Ralph L. Berkshire, William 

 A. Harrison, James H. Brown. 



The inauguration of the new State took place 

 at Wheeling (the capital), on the 20th of June, 

 with imposing ceremonies. The retiring gov- 

 ernor (Pierpont) briefly addressed the citizens, 

 urging them not to forsake the national flag, 

 and introduced the governor elect, whom he 

 pronounced "true as steel." Gov. Boreman 

 made a short speech, in which he said that the 

 only terms of peace were that the rebels should 

 lay down their arms and submit to the regularly 

 constituted authority of the United States. The 

 General Assembly organized on the same day. 

 In his inaugural message to the Legislature 

 Gov. Boreman recommended the immediate 

 passage of laws to effectually extirpate slavery 

 from the State, and that no man should be per- 

 mitted to vote or hold office until he had taken 

 the oath of allegiance. The Legislature elected 

 W. T. Willey, of Morgantown, and P. G. Van 

 Winkle, of Parkersburg, U. S. senators. 



West Virginia was called upon for 10,000 

 militia during the war. She had already put 

 20,000 troops into the field. 



WASIUM. Supposed N&io Metal. Bahr 

 claims to have discovered in a mineral from 

 Ronsholm, an island near Stockholm, a new 

 metal which, in honor of the royal family of 

 Wasa, he proposes to name Wasium. The 

 mineral itself has been termed Wasite; the 

 supposed new metal was also found in Norwe- 

 gian or.thite, and in gadolinite from Ytterby. 

 From the first named of these, about 1 per 

 cent, of the supposed oxide of wasium was ob- 

 tained, in form of a brownish sandy powder, of 

 density 3.726. Bahr regards as especially char- 

 acteristic of the new oxide that, upon being 

 treated with strong nitric acid and evaporated, 

 it assumes a gelatinous consistency. 



Prof. J. Nickles, however, declares (Comptes 

 Rendus, Ivii. 1740), that the supposed wasium 

 of Bahr is nothing more than yttrium blended 

 with a little of its congener didymium, or per- 

 haps terbium. He cites the fact that Klaproth's 

 nitrate of yttria furnishes, on evaporation of its 

 watery solution, the same gelatinous precipi- 

 tate which Bahr insists on as characteristic of 

 the new metallic oxide. 



WHATELY, RICHARD, D. D., Lord Arch- 

 bishop of London, born in Cavendish Square, 

 London, February 1st, 1787, died in Dublin, 

 Ireland, October 8th, 1863. He was the fourth 

 son of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Whately, preben- 



dary of Bristol. He was educated at Oriel 

 College, Oxford, then the great school of spec- 

 ulative philosophy, and ranked among the most 

 eminent scholars in that celebrated college. He 

 received the degree of B. A. in 1808, and of 

 M. A. in 1812. In 1810, he obtained the prize 

 for his English essay, "What are the Arts in 

 the Cultivation of which the Ancients were 

 less successful than the Moderns?" In 1811, 

 he was elected Fellow of Oriel, then consid- 

 ered the highest honor in Oxford, except the 

 provostship of the same college. The Fellows 

 of Oriel were, at this period, and for many 

 years later, men of the highest intellectual 

 rank in Great Britain. J. H. Newman, E. B. 

 Pusey, Bishops Miant, Copleston, Wilberforce, 

 Hampden, and others, beside Whately, were 

 among the number. In 1822, Mr. Whately 

 was Bampton Lecturer, taking for his subject 

 " The Use and Abuse of Party Feeling hi Mat- 

 ters of Religion," and the same year he was 

 presented to the rectory of Halesworth, Suf- 

 folk. In 1825, Lord Grenville, chancellor of 

 Oxford, recalled him to the university as Prin- 

 cipal of St. Alban's Hall, on which occasion he 

 took the degree of B. D. and D.D. In 1830, 

 he was elected Professor of Political Economy 

 in the University. In 1831, on the death of 

 Archbishop Magee, Earl Grey appointed Dr. 



