OTAOO 



trade. The town grew up around A 



monastery founded in MII-MU.IA i.f 

 the Ni>iiliiiinl.ii.in kiii(! Oswald, 

 lifin-i- its name. In Nnrmiui time*, 

 a castle, now destroyed, was built, 

 and, l>einu mi the Welsh border, 

 the tiv. n had ;i -lining existence 

 fm three centimes or BO. In the 

 li'tli century it was made a cor- 

 toxxn. Market day, Wed. 

 l'(.|.. 1(1,000. 



Otago. I'rov. of South Island, 

 Ncxv /caland. It lies between 

 Southland and Canterbury mi the 

 ,d \\Vstland on the N.W.. 

 with a short coast-line N. of Milt '-nt 

 Sound on the W. and a longer 

 roast -line on the E. In the N.W. 

 it is mountainous, containing a 

 section of the Southern Alps, from 

 which drains the river system of the 

 Clutha connected with the lake- 

 Wakatipu, Wanaka, and Hawea. 

 The rainfall varies greatly : in the 

 W. it exceeds 100 ins. annually; 

 near Duncdin, the capital, it is 

 30 ins., and between Queenstown 

 and Oamaru is the driest part of 

 New Zealand, a semi-desert with 

 less than 20 ins., where irrigation is 

 essential. Wheat and oats are 

 grown and sheep are reared. Gold 

 is dredged from the Clutha 

 gravels. Rlys. connect Dunedin 

 with Christchurch, The Bluff, and 

 Clyde. The estuary at Dunedin is 

 called Otago Harbour, and the 

 peninsula to the S.E. is Otago 

 Peninsula. 



Settlement began in 1848, when 

 a number of Scots landed under 

 the auspices of the Free Church 

 of Scotland. Southland prov. was 

 separated from Otago in 1861, in 

 which year gold was discovered at 

 Gabriel's Gully. Provincial ad- 

 ministration ceased in 1875. The 

 first shipment of frozen meat left 

 Port Chalmers, Dunedin, in 1882. 

 The area of Otago is 13,957 sq. m. 

 Pop. 132,000. 



Otaki. British steamer. Of 

 9,575 tons, built 1908, and owned by 

 the New Zealand Steamship Co., it 

 was sunk in action with the German 

 raider Moewe. On March 10, 1917, 

 the Moewe met the Otaki and 

 ordered her to stop. This she 

 refused to do, and although she 

 carried only one 4'7-in. gun, and 

 the Moewe had an armament of 

 four 5'9-in. and one 4'1-in. guns, the 

 Otaki fought her powerful antago- 

 nist for twenty minutes. Seeing 

 that his ship was on fire, the captain, 

 Lieut. A. B. Smith, put his crew 

 in boate, but remained at his post 

 until the Otaki went down with 

 colours flying. For his heroism he 

 was awarded the V.C. posthum- 

 ously. See Moewe. 



Otalgia (Gr. otoa, of the ear; 

 olgos, pain). Pain in the ear, or 

 earache. See Ear. 



5805 



Oswestry, Shropshire. Pariih church o! 8. Oswald, 

 restored 1893-94 



Otaru. Seaport of Japan, in 

 Hokkaido. Shut in by hills, N., W., 

 and S., the town faces the sea on 

 the I-!. ; the harbour is protected on 

 the N.W. by a small peninsula, to 

 which a long breakwater has been 

 added. Of recent growth both as 

 a business centre and as a seaport, 

 it has considerable trade with 

 Honshu, Karafuto (Sakhalin), 

 and Asiatic Russia. Close by are 

 the Temiya coal pier and the 

 Takashima Marine Products ex- 

 perimental station. The port is on 

 the main rly. line of Hokkaido, 

 20 m. W. of Sapporo, the capital, and 

 159 m. N. of Hakodate. In 1872 

 it was only a fishing village with 

 4,000 inhabitants. Pop. 91,000. 



Otavi. Mining centre in the N.E. 

 of the S.W. Africa Protectorate, in 

 Damaraland. It is connected by 

 rail with the coast at Swakopmund 

 and Walvis Bay. In the neigh- 

 bourhood are rich deposits of 

 copper and lead, worked by the 

 Otavi Mining and Railways Com- 

 pany, at five centres Tsumeb, 

 Guchab, Great Otavi, Asis, and 

 Otavi Valley. 



O.T.C. Abbrev. for Officers' 

 Training Corps (q.v.). 



Othello THE MOOR OF VENICE. 

 Tragedy by Shakespeare. Othello, 

 a noble Moor in the military service 

 of Venice, marries Desdemona, 

 daughter of a senator. lago, his 

 ancient or standard-bearer, a man 

 of mean mind and thwarted ambi- 

 tion, makes Othello think that 

 Desdemona has been unfaithful. 

 The Moor smothers his wife, and 

 then, confronted with proof of 

 lagp's perfidy, kills himself. 



The play, the most symmetri- 

 cal of Shakespeare's tragedies, is 

 mainly domestic. It was written 

 about 1604, acted at Whitehall, 

 Nov. 1, 1604, and printed in quarto 

 1622 and 1630, and in the first 

 folio of 1623. Based on Cinthio's 

 Hecatommithi, iii. 7, and in 5 acts, 

 its text varies, but as usually 

 printed it contains 3,324 lines, in- 

 cluding 541 of verse, 2,672 of blank 

 verse, and 86 pentameter rhymes. 

 Apart from Edmund Kean, who 



OTITIS 



appeared at 

 Dniry Lane, May 

 5,1814,MOthe!)o, 

 and on May 7, 

 1814, as IMO, and 

 Henry Irving, 

 who alternated 

 the parti of 

 Othello and lago 

 with Edwin 

 Booth, at The 

 Lyceum, May, 

 1881, the out- 

 standing modern 

 interpreters of the 

 Moor have been 

 Italian Tomasso 

 Salvini, Drury Lane, April 1, 

 1*7.".; and Giovanni Grasso, The 

 Lyric, March 21, 1910. -See Aldridge, 

 I. F. ; Dcsd'Tnona; lago. 



Otho, MARCUS SALVIUS (A.D. 32- 

 69). Roman emperor. He joined 

 Galba in the rising against Nero, 

 but, disappointed at not being 

 designated as Galba's successor, 

 took advantage of the latter's un- 

 popularity to form the conspiracy 

 which resulted in his murder. 

 Otho was proclaimed emperor Jan. 

 15, 69, but in the same month 

 Vitellius was also proclaimed 

 emperor by the legions in Germany. 

 The rival forces met at Bedriacum, 

 where Otho was defeated, and he 

 put an end to his life, April 16, 69. 

 Otira Gorge. Pass in the South- 

 ern Alps, New Zealand. Connecting 

 the provinces of Canterbury and 

 Westland in South Island, it rises 

 to a saddle, Arthur's Pass, 3,030 

 ft., between peaks, of which Mt. 

 Barron, on the S., has an alt. of 

 5,660 ft. Since 1865-66 the gorge 

 has been crossed by a road made 

 in the days of the boom of the 

 Westland gold diggings and since 

 used by coaches. A tunnel, 5^ m. 

 in length, was cut, and a rly. 

 through the gorge started. 



Otitis. Inflammation of the 

 organ of hearing. It may attack 

 the outer ear, the middle ear, or 

 the internal ear, and in all cases it 

 produces deafness. In the two 

 former conditions the deafness is 

 known as conduction deafness ; in 

 the latter as nerve deafness. These 

 two varieties of deafness can easily 

 be distinguished by holding a 

 vibrating tuning-fork opposite the 

 ear. Wnen the note is just in- 

 audible in this position, the end of 

 the fork is placed on the bone be- 

 hind the ear. If it is again heard 

 the deafness is conduction deaf- 

 ness ; if not it is nerve deafness. 



External otitis is an inflamma- 

 tion of the skin of the outer ear. 

 There is some discharge from the 

 skin, of clear fluid containing 

 scales, which are moistened and 

 loosened by the discharge. The 

 deafness is slight. There is some 



