136 



XIMKNES YAKOUTSK. 



fun Vicillard. Ximenes was a friend of the revo- 

 lution, but without passion or selfishness. He took 

 no part in the proceedings, nor did he hold any of- 

 fice. His last work is Discours au Roi. He died 

 at Paris in 1817- 



XIMENES, LEONARDO ; a distinguished mathe- 

 matician, who died in Florence in 1786, in his sixty- 

 fifth year. He did much for hydraulics and astro- 

 nomy. 



XIPHIAS. See Sword.rah. 



XUTHUS ; the third son of Hellen and of Or- 



seis. As he was passed over by his father in the 

 partition of his lands, and his brothers expelled him 

 from Thessaly, he went to Attica, where he assisted 

 Erictheus against the Eleusinians, and married his 

 daughter Creusa. But he was driven away again 

 by his brothers-in-law, after he had founded the 

 four cities of Attica. His sons were Achxus and 

 Ion. 



XYLOGRAPHY (from |t-x, wood, and y ( *<p a , 

 I write) ; a name sometimes given to wood engrav. 

 ing. 



Y ; the twenty-fifth letter of the English alphabet, 

 sometimes used as a vowel, sometimes as a conson- 

 ant. It is a consonant at the beginning of words, 

 in which cases it is produced by the emission of 

 breath, whilst the root of the tongue is brought 

 into contact with the hinder part of the palate, and 

 nearly in the position into which the close g brings 

 it, only a greater part of the tongue is pressed 

 against the roof of the mouth. It has, in this case, 

 the same sound with the German j, or the g in 

 some parts of Germany. The letter y is derived 

 from the Greek v, which, however, had a different 

 sound. The Germans have entirely rejected it, 

 except in names of persons. A few persons of the 

 old school continue it, and some use it still in the 

 case of seyn (to be), to distinguish that word from 

 sein (his) ; but these are very few, and the distinc- 

 tion is unnecessary, as the context will always show 

 which word is meant. In Spanish, the custom of 

 using t instead of y, where this letter is a vowel, is 

 becoming more general ; thus, reyno, reynar, are 

 now giving way to reino, reinar. The Romans 

 either retained the Greek y in nouns originally 

 Greek, and betraying a Greek origin, as physica, 

 tnythus, synodus, Harpyia, systema, Libya, myrrha, 

 mysterium ; or changed it into a short v, or o, as in 

 the case of liu changed into duo, pus into mus (mus- 

 CM/US), ^ti/fcWK into mugire, (tu\*.u, ft.ui.ii, into wio/o, 

 mola ; or wrote it i, as in inclitus, and probably 

 pronounced it like the Greek v, or the French u, 

 or the German u. Y, as a numeral letter, signifies 

 150, or, according to Baronius, 159, as in the 

 verse 



Y dat centenoi et quinquaginta noeenot. 



Y, on French coins, denotes the mint of Bourges. 

 Y, in its Greek form (T), is also called the Pytha- 

 gorean letter, because the Pythagoreans were said 

 to signify by it the proceeding of the duad out of 

 the monad, or the sacred triad (q. v.) ; according 

 to others, convalescence (oy/s/a), or the dividing road 

 of life. It is also called the Druid's foot In geo- 

 graphy, Y is the name of several Chinese towns ; 

 also of Y, or Wye, an arm or inlet of the Zuyder 

 Zee, Netherlands, on the south shore of which 

 Amsterdam is built. We have known, in Germany, 

 a person whose family name was Y, pronounced, as 

 this letter always is in Germany, ee. 



YACHT ; a vessel of state usually employed to 



convey princes, ambassadors, or other great person- 

 ages, from one kingdom to another. As the prin- 

 cipal design of a yacht is to accommodate the pas- 

 sengers, it is usually fitted with a variety of con- 

 venient apartments, with suitable furniture. Pri- 

 vate pleasure boats, when sufficiently large for a 

 sea voyage, are also termed yachts; they are rigged 

 in various manners. 



YADKIN. See Pedee. 



YAKOUTSK, OR JAKUTSK ; a town in Sibe- 

 ria, capital of a province of the same name, situated 

 on the Lena ; lat. 62 2' N. ; Ion. 130 E. ; popu- 

 lation, about 7000. Yakoutsk lies in a plain, sur- 

 rounded with mountains, and is the emporium of 

 the northern fur trade, and an important entrepot 

 of Russian and Chinese goods. Furs, corn, wine 

 and salt are brought from Irkoutsk and Ilimsk by 

 the Lena, and wines from Archangel. The cold is 

 so excessive here in winter, that mercury freezes. 



The province of Yakoutsk was formed in 1823, 

 of a part of the government of Irkutsk. It borders 

 on the Frozen ocean on the north, and the Chinese 

 territories on the south, extending from 53 15' to 

 76 15' N. lat., and from 104 to 163 E. Ion., and 

 covering a superficial area of nearly 1,500,000 square 

 miles, with a population of 140,000 souls. A great 

 part of this extensive region is sterile and desolate. 

 The inhabitants, who are chiefly Yakoutes and 

 Tunguses, live principally by the chase, fishing, or 

 the raising of reindeer, which animal they employ, 

 like the Laplanders, in dragging their sledges, 

 similar to that represented below. Far to the 



north, they dwindle into a poor and stunted race. 

 Their vegetable food consists of various roots, as 



