304 



O.MS OPAL. 



piease her, ho assumed the garments of a female, 

 adorned his fingers with gold rings, had his hair 

 curled, and spun among her female slaves, while she 

 wore i In- lion's skin, and wielded the club. Omphale 

 governed with great severity, and was no less licen- 

 tious and extravagant thnn cruel. 



OMS. See Cerberus. 



ON. See Heliopotis. 



ON DIT ; a French term signifying people say; 

 hence often used to designate a flying rumour. The 

 plural lex on tlifs is used. 



ON El DA ; a lake of New York, twenty miles long. 

 From its west end flows Oneida river, which joins 

 with Seneca river, to form Oswego river, flowing 

 into lake Ontaria. Oneida lake abounds with fish, 

 such as salmon, trout, salmon-trout, Oswego bass, 

 pike, and catfish. The lands around this lake are 

 very rich, but rather low and level. 



ONION (allium) ; a genus of plants including, 

 besides the common onion, the echalote, garlic, and 

 leek. (See these three articles.) The species of 

 allium are herbaceous plants, with biennial or per- 

 ennial bulbous roots. Their leaves are flat, or cy- 

 lindrical, and fistulous, and sheathing at base. The 

 flowers are disposed in simple umbels, more or less 

 dense, at the summit of the stems. The calyx is 

 deeply parted into six equal divisions ; there is no 

 corolla, and the stamens are six in number ; the cap- 

 sule consists of three cells, each containing several 

 seeds. In the place of the flowers there are fre- 

 quently developed, in certain species, small bulbs, 

 which, if planted, will reproduce the vegetable. 

 About sixty species are known. The onion proper 

 (A. cepa) is abundantly cultivated throughout Eu- 

 rope and in the United States of America. The 

 stem is three or four feet high, inflated, and termi- 

 nated by a dense globose head of reddish flowers ; 

 the leaves are radical, cylindrical and hollow. Its 

 use as an alimentary plant is well known. The red 

 variety is more acrid than the white, and both be- 

 come essentially milder in warm climates. The 

 onion requires a rich and rather moist soil. 



O N OM ATOPCEI A (e'va^are-rwJa ; evofict, name, trtitu, 



to make) ; the formation of words in such a manner 

 that the sound shall imitate the sense. Thus, in the 

 case of sounds, the words buzz, crush, roar, are evident- 

 ly formed to imitate the sounds themselves ; sometimes 

 the word expressing an object is formed to imitate 

 the sound produced by that object. See Language. 



ONONDAGA ; a post-township and capital of 

 Onondaga county, New York, 134 miles west-north- 

 west of Albany, and fifty west of Utica. Its extent 

 is nine miles by ten. A broad valley, of exuberant 

 fertility, extends north and south through the easteni 

 part, bounded by high, swelling ridges on each side. 

 Through thjs valley of rich alluvion, called Ononda- 

 ga Hollow, flows Onondaga creek, northward to On- 

 ondaga lake, in the town of Salina. The whole 

 township of Onondaga contained, in 1831, 5668 in- 

 habitants, and seems not to be rapidly increasing. 

 The post-borough of Onondaga, the seat of the coun- 

 ty buildings, is situated on a delightful eminence. 

 The post-village of Onondaga Hollow is about one 

 mile east of the court-house. It has an arsenal be- 

 longing to the state, and many mechanical establish- 

 ments. Onondaga Castle is the chief town of the 

 remnant of the Onondaga tribe of Indians. It is 

 three miles south of the village of Onondaga Hollow, 

 and contains about fifty Indian houses, and about 

 140 persons. Their houses are built of hewn logs. 

 They annually receive 1000 dollars from the state 

 of New York. 



ONTARIO ; one of the five great lakes which 

 separate Canada from the United States. It is 

 situated between 43 and 44 N. lat, and 76 and 



80" W. Ion. Its form is elliptical, and a central line 

 drawn from its south-west to its north-east extremity 

 measures 190 miles. Its greatest breadth is about 

 fifty- five, and its medial breadth about forty miles. 

 Towards the western part of the lake, it receives 

 Niagara river ; and from this point to the St Law- 

 rence river, which flows from the north-east part of 

 the lake, the line dividing Canada from the United 

 States is the middle of the lake. Nearly half of lake 

 Ontario is, therefore, in the state of New York. It 

 is very deep, with sufficient water in every part, 

 and has many good harbours. It is never entirely 

 closed by ice, and is computed, from some soundings, 

 to be 500 feet deep. If this be correct, the bottom 

 must be considerably below the level of the Atlantic 

 ocean. Its surface is only 231 feet above tide water 

 at Three Rivers on the St Lawrence, and at Albany 

 on the Hudson. Besides Niagara river, lake On- 

 tario receives from I*ew York the Genessee, Oswego, 

 and Black rivers, and a large number of small 

 streams. Among its bays, the largest are Chan- . 

 mont, Sodus, Little Sodus, Teoronto, and Brad- 

 dock's, on the side of the United States; Quinte, 

 Burlington, and many large ones on the Canada 

 side, of which our maps do not give the names. 

 Stony and Grenadier islands are at the eastern end ; 

 and there are some around Quinte bay, in Canada. 

 Wolfe or Grand island is at the entrance of the river 

 St Lawrence ; and the well-known Thousand islands 

 are just below Wolfe island. Lake Ontario abounds 

 with excellent fish of various kinds. The most cele- 

 brated of these are the Oswego bass, the salmon, 

 trout, and salmon-trout. The shores of the lake 

 embrace a great variety of land : the greater part of 

 it is pretty good, with the exception of marshy 

 ground. Along its southern border is that remark- 

 able ridge called the ridge road, or alluvial way. 

 See Ridge Road. 



ONTOLOGICAL PROOF is that proof of the 

 existence of God which is drawn from the abstract 

 idea of his being. Something similar to this is to be 

 found as early as the Stoic Cleanthes. But Anselm 

 of Canterbury and Descartes chiefly developed this 

 species of proof. 



ONTOLOGY, also ONTOSOPHY ; the doctrine 

 of being ; a name formerly given to that branch of 

 metaphysics which treats of the essential qualities of 

 things. It investigated the nature, 1. ot things in 

 general, their possibility, reality, and necessity ; 2. 

 of substance and accidence, cause, effect, and 

 mutual operation ; 3. of quantity, quality, similarity, 

 and equality of things ; 4. of space and time; and, 

 5. of the simple and the compound. Kant has over 

 thrown the ontology of the ancient school. 



ONYCHITES. See Alabaster. 



ONYX. See Quartz. 



OONALASHKA. See Aleutian Islands. 



OOST ; Dutch for east, corresponding to the 

 German Ost. (q. v.) 



OPAL occurs in small reniform, botryoidal, and 

 stalactitic shapes, and large tuberose concretions ; 

 surface of the former smooth, of the latter rough ; 

 composition impalpable ; fracture conchoidal, even. 

 It also occurs in pseudomorphoses of carbonate of 

 lime ; fracture conchoidal, of various degrees of 

 perfection, sometimes highly perfect ; lustre vitreous, 

 in some varieties inclining to resinous ; colour 

 white, yellow, red, brown, green, and grey ; none 

 of them lively, except some red and green ones ; 

 dark colours, owing to foreign admixtures; streak 

 white ; transparent, or translucent, sometimes wily 

 on the edges, or even opaque, if the colours be very 

 dark ; lively play of light observable in some 

 varities; others show different colours by reflected 

 and transmitted light ; hardness below quartz , 



