KUBELIK 



3280 



KUMISS 



have become the -largest in the world for the 

 manufacture of the great guns used in war. 

 At the time of his death he was the wealthiest 

 man in Germany, and was generous with his 

 employees, building modern dwellings and pro- 

 viding a pension fund of $4,000,000 for their 

 use. Krupp's eldest daughter, Bertha, who 

 succeeded to the business and took a personal 

 interest in its management, was married to 

 Dr. Gustav von Bohlen in October, 1906. On 

 that occasion Dr. von Bohlen was granted the 

 privilege of bearing the name Krupp von 

 Bohlen. Since this time the working capital 

 of the Krupp works has been increased to 

 $57,500,000. 



KUBELIK, koo'behlik, JAN (1880- ), a 

 Bohemian violinist whose remarkable tech- 

 nique, powers of interpretation and impressive 

 individuality place him among the most gifted 

 artists of the twentieth century. He was born 

 in Miehle, near Prague, and received his early 

 musical education from his father, making his 

 first public appearance at the age of eight. 

 For six years he was a student at the Prague 

 Conservatory, and since that time has been 

 appearing in public concerts in the leading 

 cities of Europe and America. His greatest 

 vogue was in his youth. 



KUBLAI KHAN, koo'bli khan (1214-1294), 

 grand khan or ruler of the Mongols and the 

 grandson of Genghis Khan, who founded the 

 Mongol dynasty in China. He became grand 

 khan upon the death of his brother Mangu in 

 1259, while the latter was engaged in the con- 

 quest of China. This task was completed by 

 Kublai, who assumed the rule of the con- 

 quered territory and nineteen years later added 

 to it Southern China. His empire thus in- 

 cluded a large part of Asia and those parts of 

 Europe which had belonged to Genghis Khan. 

 Kublai Khan was a wise administrator and 

 the patron of letters and various branches of 

 industry. Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler, 

 spent some years at Kublai's court and re- 

 corded some interesting information regarding 

 him. See GENGHIS KHAN. 



KUEN-LUN, kwenloon', MOUNTAINS, a 



vast mountain system of CentraJ Asia, extend- 

 ing for over 2,000 miles from the Pamir high- 

 land region in the west to the interior of China. 

 One range of the system forms the northern 

 boundary of the plateau of Tibet. The peaks 

 in the western section, which form a single 

 chain, and whose slopes carry great fields of 

 snow and enormous glaciers, tower 20,000 feet 

 above the sea. East of the eighty-fifth 

 meridian (east longitude) the system is broken 

 up into numerous ranges, plateaus and valleys. 

 The Kuen-lun Mountains are occasionally 

 crossed by lofty passes over three miles in 

 altitude, which can be traversed only by using 

 the sure-footed yak. 



KU-KLUX KLAN, a society founded in Pu- 

 laski, Tenn., about the year 1866, originally 

 for amusement. The name first suggested was 

 "Kukloi," from a Greek word, kyklos, meaning 

 circle. It was changed to Ku-Klux, and Klan 

 was added from the name of a former similar 

 society. 



In the Reconstruction period, immediately 

 after the War of Secession, the Ku-Klux Klan 

 changed from a social organization to one 

 which endeavored to hold the emancipated 

 negroes in check. The Klan dressed in fan- 

 tastic, ghostly costumes, with white masks; 

 the members communicated with each other 

 by means of whistles, and they rode out at 

 night. All these facts reduced the supersti- 

 tious negroes to a state of abject terror. Al- 

 though the organization exceeded legal bounds, 

 it did much in bringing law and order to the 

 South. The negroes after the war were at first 

 unruly and later an actual menace to the 

 whites. In 1871 the government, alarmed at 

 the ever-growing power of the Klan, gave the 

 matter its serious consideration and finally 

 disbanded it. See RECONSTRUCTION. 



Consult Tourgee's A Fool's Errand; Lester's 

 The Ku-Klux Klan. 



KUMISS, koomis, from the Tartar word 

 kumiz, meaning fermented mare's milk, is a 

 variation of the spelling koumiss (which see). 



End of Volume Five 



