OKAPI 



4358 



OKLAHOMA 



down before and behind. They are well-built 

 people, tall and agile, and expert hunters and 

 fishermen. They now number about 30,000, 

 approximately 12,700 of whom live on Cana- 

 dian reservations. See INDIANS, AMERICAN. 



OKAPI, okah'pe, a peculiarlj'-colored ani- 

 mal of the giraffe family, discovered in 1899 

 by exploring parties in the dense forests of the 

 Congo valley, in Africa. It is about four feet 

 tall at the shoulders and has a rather long 

 neck, while its sloping body makes the fore- 

 legs look longer than the hind ones, as is 

 true of the giraffe. Although the body is 

 red-brown, the limbs are creamy-white, boldly 

 marked with purple-black stripes and blotches. ' 

 The innocent-looking face of the okapi is 

 creamy-white, but the nose and pointed ears 

 are deep brown or black. Little is known of 

 the habits of the animal. 



OKECHOBEE, okecho'be, the largest lake 

 in the Southern states, located in the great 

 Florida swamps known as the Everglades. It 

 is forty miles long and over twenty-five miles 

 wide, and is very shallow in most parts, never 

 reaching a depth of more than twenty-two 

 feet. Its shores are lined with marshy jungles 



and cypress swamps, while the lake is filled 

 with weeds, so that it cannot be used for boat- 

 ing. The outlet into the Gulf of Mexico 

 through the Caloosahatchee River has been 

 improved by several drainage canals, which 

 have also made a large portion of the sur- 

 rounding country fit for agriculture. The great 

 drainage project in the Everglades will in time 

 change the entire character of the region. The 

 plans are illustrated on page 2107. 



OKHOTSK, okotxk', SEA OF, an arm of the 

 North Pacific Ocean, 1,000 miles long and 600 

 miles wide, navigated chiefly by whaling ves- 

 sels. It is separated from Bering Sea on the 

 east by the island of Kamchatka, and from 

 the ocean on the south by the Kurile Islands. 

 This sea is icebound from November to April, 

 and sometimes longer. It receives the waters 

 of the Amur and other smaller rivers, and its 

 shores are steep and inhospitable. The towns 

 of Nikolayevsk and Okhotsk are its chief ports. 

 The former is a naval station, with a fair trade 

 and about 7,000 population; the latter has 

 about 400 inhabitants, having declined in com- 

 mercial importance with the lessening of the 

 whaling industry. 



Oklahoma 

 is one of the 

 eatest cotton-producing sta 



KLAHO'MA, one of the western 

 south-central states, formed by the uniting of 

 Oklahoma and Indian territories, and the forty- 

 sixth to enter the Union. In 1915 this state led 

 all others for the first time in the production of 

 petroleum, and owing to the rapid development 

 of this and other industries, and of its cities 

 and towns, Oklahoma is popularly known as the 

 BOOMER STATE. Towns have been established 

 almost in a day, as was Thomas in Custer 

 County; the site of this place was chosen by 

 persons who went into the territory on an ex- 

 cursion train, which they stopped when a favor- 

 able location for settlement was found. In a 

 day the town was laid out and a daily paper 

 was started. The name of the state is a Choc- 

 taw Indian word meaning land oj the red man. 

 The mistletoe, which grows on Oklahoma's 

 great oaks, has been chosen as the state flower. 



Size and Location. Having an area of 70,057 

 square miles, of which 643 square miles are 

 water surface, Oklahoma is slightly larger than 

 the state of Missouri, and three times the size 

 of Nova Scotia. It is separated from Texas on 

 the south by the Red River, a natural bound- 

 ary. A narrow strip known as the Panhandle, 

 thirty-five miles wide, formerly called No Man's 

 Land, extends 120 miles west of the main part 

 of the state on the northern border. 



People. The population of Oklahoma has 

 grown more rapidly than that of any other state 

 of the Union. In 1910, when the state was only 

 three years old, the inhabitants numbered 

 1,657,155, which is about equal to the popula- 

 . tion of the state of Louisiana. On January 1, 

 1917, the population was estimated at 2,245,968, 

 nearly ten times what it was twenty-five years 

 before. The proportion of negro and Indian 



