576 



THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



and the Maritza. There are several plains 

 remarkable for their fertility and beauty. The 

 climate is not so mild as its latitude might seem 

 to indicate, the winter being severe; but the 

 summer heat is excessive. For the production 

 of the ordinary cereals no part of the world is 

 more admirably adapted. The principal grains 

 are maize, wheat, and barley, while rice, millet, 

 and buckwheat, are produced, as also flax, hemp, 

 sesame, and madder. The cultivation of to- 

 bacco ajid cotton is very general. Among fruits 

 the figs are highly esteemed; the cultivation of 

 the olive is carried on along the coasts of the 

 Archipelago and the Adriatic ; wine is an impor- 

 tant product in many districts; and much atten- 

 tion is paid in some parts to the growing of roses. 

 There are few manufactures except in Constan- 

 tinople, Adrianople, and Salonica, and these are 

 of little importance. 



Turkey in Asia includes Anatolia, otherwise 

 known as Asia Minor, the country intersected by 

 the Euphrates and the Tigris, the mountainous 

 region of Armenia between their upper courses 

 and the Black Sea, the ancient lands of Syria 

 and Palestine, and the coast strips of Arabia 

 along the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Omitting 

 Arabia, the country consists mainly of: (1) a 

 high plateau traversed by the mountains of 

 Taurus and Anti-Taurus, and stretching from 

 the Archipelago to the borders of Persia. (2) 

 A plateau of less elevation and extent (Syria 

 and Palestine) traversed by the double range of 

 Lebanon. (3) The extensive plain of Mesopo- 

 tamia on the lower Tigris and Euphrates. The 

 islands Chios, Lesbos, Rhodes, etc., belong to 

 Turkey in Asia, while the island of Samos is a 

 tributary principality, and Cyprus is held by 

 Great Britain. The chief towns in Asiatic 

 Turkey are Smyrna, Damascus, Bagdad, Aleppo, 

 and Beyrout. The chief exports are raisins, 

 figs, and dates, silk, cotton, wool, and mohair, 

 opium, coffee, wheat, wine, valonia, olive oil, 

 and tobacco; while the imports are cotton, 

 woolen, and silk goods, metals, iron, steel, glass 

 wares, etc. The inhabitants of the Ottoman 

 Empire are of very diverse races. First in 

 order are the Osmanli Turks, who, as the domi- 

 nant race, are diffused over the country. The 

 Greeks form the bulk of the population over 

 great part of the vEgean coasts and islands. 

 Aronauts, or Albanians, are found in the west 

 throughout Albania; the northwest is occupied 

 by Servians; and Bulgarians inhabit the dis- 

 trict south of the Danube and east of Servia and 

 Albania. In Asiatic Turkey the Turks are an 

 important element, but there are also numbers 

 of Armenians, Arabs, Kurds, Jews, Greeks, 

 Circassians, etc. 



Ural Mountains. Form part of the 

 boundary between Europe and Asia, and sepa- 

 rate European Russia on the west from Siberia 

 on the east. The chain extends south from the 

 Kara Sea, an arm of the Arctic Ocean, to the 

 middle course of the Ural River, and is 1,333 

 miles long, with a width varying from sixteen 

 to sixty-six miles. Although the Ural Moun- 

 tains form really a single uninterrupted chain, 

 geographers have agreed to consider them as 

 divided into three sections the North, Middle, 

 and South Ural. The Middle Ural, commonly 



called Roudnoi (metalliferous), the ' principal 

 seat of the mineral riches of the whole chain, 

 comprises the highest peaks, as the Kanjakovski 

 Kamen, rising to 5,000 feet. The chain is com- 

 posed chiefly of crystalline and metamorphic 

 rocks, granite, gneiss, porphyry, chlpritic and 

 micaceous schists. The Ural Mountains, espec- 

 ially the middle and the north part of the South 

 I'ral (the governments of Perm and Orenburg), 

 abound in mines of gold, platinum, copper, and 

 iron. Among the precious stones the most 

 notable are the emerald, amethyst, and diamond. 



Vatican, The, the palace of the pope in 

 Rome and one of the largest in the world; con- 

 tains a valuable collection of works of art, and 

 is one of the chief attractions in the city; it is 

 a storehouse of literary treasures as well and 

 documents of interest bearing on the history 

 of the Middle Ages. 



Venice (Italian, Venezia), a city of Italy, the 

 capital of a province of the same name, on the 

 Gulf of Venice, about 155 miles east of Milan. 

 The city is built on a number of low islands, 

 chiefly upon the island of Rialto, and is inter- 

 sected by numerous canals. Many of the pal- 

 aces and other public buildings of the city are 

 i very fine, especially the Cathedral of St. Mark, 

 dating from the Eleventh Century, which is 

 remarkable for its five cupolas, its five hundred 

 marble columns, and its rich mosaics; and the 

 palace of the Doges, built in the Fourteenth 

 Century, and now used for ceremonies of state. 

 From the palace of the Doges to the prisons on 

 the opposite side of the canal called the Rio 

 Palazzo stretches the famous Bridge of Sighs; 

 and at some distance in front of the cathedral 

 stands the also famous campanile, or bell tower, 

 i of St. Mark, which was completed in the Six- 

 teenth Century, and which reaches a height of 

 upwards of 320 feet, at the top being the figure 

 of an angel, which is said to be thirty feet hi^h. 

 Venice was once called the Queen of the Adriatic. 



Vesuvius, Mount (ve-soo'veus). A fa- 

 mous volcano of South Italy, six miles cast of 

 Naples. Its base commands a circuit of thirty 

 miles; its height is 3,949 feet above sea level; 

 and its crater, 350 feet in depth, has a circum- 

 ference of two miles at its outer place, with a 

 level plain at the bottom a half mile in diameter. 

 It towers above a smiling pastoral country 

 dotted with towns and vineyards, and whicn 

 has time after time been the scene of its devas- 

 tating eruptions. The earliest known of the latter 

 occurred in 79 A. D., when the cities of Pompeii, 

 Herculaneum, and Stabise were overwhelmed 

 beneathed the floods of lava it disgorged. The 

 most remarkable of later eruptions have been 

 those of 1036, 1779, 1822, 1839, 1855, and 1872. 

 On the last-named occasion the volcano con- 

 tinued for some days in a state of ebullition, and 

 during its continuance made considerable rav- 

 ages upon immediately surrounding life and 

 property. 



Victoria Nyanza, a lake in East Central 

 Africa, on the Equator, is about the size of 

 Ireland, 300 miles long and twenty miles broad, 

 at an elevation of 3,500 feet above the sea level ; 

 discovered by Captain Speke in 1858, and cir- 

 cumnavigated by Stanley in 1875; is regarded 

 as the head-source of the Nile, the waters of it 



