126 



nil. STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



that country, is the outcome of a series of con- 

 cessions from the Crown. Full emancipation 

 was granted to the Jews in England in ls.~.x. 



Kansas, derived from an Indian name 

 meaning "smoky .water," was visited by the 

 Spaniards in 1541 ; afterward by the French in 

 1719. It came to the United States through 

 the Louisiana Purchase, and was a portion of 

 the territory which, by the Missouri Compro- 

 mise of 1820, was always to remain untouched 

 by slavery. When the territory ol Kansas was 

 organized, in 1854, it was declared by Congress 

 that the Missouri Compromise was abolished. 

 This led to the Kansas troubles^ which lasted 

 till 1859. with various vicissitudes, when a tree 

 constitution was adopted, forever prohibiting 

 slavery. This imbroglio played an important 

 part in inflaming the passions of North and 

 South, and ripening the conditions which made 

 our late Civil War inevitable. Kansas was 

 admitted to the Union in 1861. During the 

 Civil War the State was the scene of irregular 

 warfare, known as "jay-hawking/' carried on 

 by Confederate raiders from Missouri and Ar- 

 kansas and the Unionists who opposed them. 

 The only battle of prominence took place at 

 Lawrence on August 21, 1863. In 1880, the 

 constitution was amended, prohibiting the liquor 

 traffic. 



Kentucky. The name Kan-tuck-kee sig- 

 nifies "darkened bloody ground," and the coun- 

 try now included in the State was originally the 

 common hunting-ground for the Indian tribes 

 living north and south of it. The first white 

 visit was that of John Finley and others, from 

 North Carolina, in 1767. Daniel Boone made a 

 permanent settlement in 1769. Colonel James 

 Knox planted a Virginian colony in 1770, fol- 

 lowed by others in 1773-74, and James Harrod 

 founded Harrodsburg in 1774. The irruption 

 of whites was met by the Indians in a series of 

 fierce and bloody conflicts. In 1775, the Chero- 

 kees ceded the country to Boone, who acted as 

 agent for Colonel James Henderson and his com- 

 pany. Kentucky was a part of Virginia till 

 1790, when it became a separate Territory. It 

 was admitted as a State into the Union in 1792, 

 being the second admitted. A second constitu- 

 tion was adopted in 1800, and the present one 

 in 1850. Kentucky during the Civil War en- 

 deavored to hold a position of neutrality. The 

 chief battles fought in the State were Mill Spring, 

 January 19, 1862, and Perryville, October 8, 

 1862. In 1864, martial law was declared, and 

 civil authority was not restored until October, 

 1865. In 1900, William Gobel, contesting can- 

 didate for governor, was assassinated, and laid 

 the foundation for a series of notable trials. 



Khyber Pass, The. Obtained great 

 notoriety because a British army of 16,000 men 

 was here annihilated in the month of January, 

 1842, during the retreat from Kabul. The only 

 persons who escaped were Dr. Brydon (a regi- 

 mental surgeon) and a private soldier. In 1838-, 

 Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India, 

 declared war against the Afghanistans because 

 their ruler, Dost Mohammed, had unlawfully 

 attacked a British ally, and because Dost Mo- 

 hammed had usurped the throne of Shah Sujah, 

 who was under British protection. On July 



LMst. Shall Sujah was restored to the throne of 

 Kabul, and the British thought the matter was 

 ended. This was a grand mistake, for at the 

 beginning of winter Akbah Khan, the son of 

 I ><>-t Mohammed, attacked the British army in 

 Kabul, and slew several of the officers. A capit- 

 ulation was made, and when the British army 

 were in the Khyber Pass on their way home 

 they were cut to pieces. With women, chil- 

 dren, and camp followers, 20,000 were slain in 

 the Pass. 



Lake Dwellings. The earliest account 

 of lake dwellings is to be found in Herodotus, who 

 describes a Thracian tribe living, in 520 B. C., in 

 a small mountain lake of what is now Rumelia. 

 The custom of constructing these habitations has 

 come down to the present day. The fishermen 

 of Lake Prasias, near Salonica, still inhabit 

 wooden cottages built over the water, as the 

 Thracian tribes did, and in the East Indies the 

 practice of building lake settlements is very com- 

 mon. 



The lake dwellings proper of Switzerland came 

 to light during the winter months of 1853-54, 

 when the water of the lakes fell much below its 

 ordinary level. Dr. Keller, who first described 

 these lake dwellings, says that the main plat- 

 form w r as made of round timbers, rarely of split 

 boards, covered with a bed of mud; the walls 

 and sides ,were in great measure of interlaced 

 branches, the interstices filled with moss, and 

 daubed with clay. In his opinion, all the evi- 

 dence goes to show that they were rectangular 

 in shape. It is probable that the huts were 

 thatched, and the parts used as dormitories 

 strewn with straw or hay. 



Also, artificial islands found principally in Ire- 

 land, where they served the purpose of strong- 

 holds. In this case " the support consisted not 

 of piles only, but of a solid mass of mud, stones, 

 etc., with layers of horizontal and perpendicular 

 stakes, the latter serving less as -a support than 

 to bind the mass firmly together." They are of 

 much later date than the lake dwelling proper, 

 some being depicted in Johnson's " Platt of the 

 County Monaghan," a map of the escheated 

 territories made for the English Government in 

 1591. 



Lancaster, the name of a royal English 

 house which flourished in two lines in the Thir- 

 teenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries. 

 The first commences with Edmund, son of Henry 

 III. and Eleanora of Provence, and brother of 

 Edward I. Thomas, his son and successor in the 

 earldom, cousin-german to Edward II., headed the 

 confederacy of barons against Piers Gaveston, and 

 finally shared the responsibility of his death with 

 Hereford and Arundel. Henry (previously Earl of 

 Leicester), brother and heir of Thomas, joined 

 the conspiracy of Isabella and Mortimer against 

 Kdward II., and received the king into his cus- 

 tody at Kenilworth. Henry, his son (previously 

 Earl of Derby), after vainly endeavoring to make 

 peace with John, King of France, under the medi- 

 ation of the pope at Avignon, was sent with an 

 army into Normandy, and took part in the vic- 

 tory of Poitiers and the subsequent French wars. 

 The next Duke of Lancaster commences a new 

 lineage, that of the princes opposed to the house 

 of York. The first in the line was John of Gaunt, 



