VAXES 



6385 



YEAST 



from the air raids of the Germans. Population 

 in 1910, 55,905. 



YATES, RICHARD (1818-1873), an American 

 statesman, born at Warsaw, Ky., destined to 

 become one of a group of famous "war gover- 

 nors" during the period of the War of Secession! 

 His parents moved to Springfield, 111., where 

 his childhood was spent. He was educated at 

 Illinois College at Jacksonville, graduating in 

 1838, and began at once the practice of law in 

 Springfield. Entering politics, he soon became 

 one of the leaders of the state, and was a mem- 

 ber of the legislature nearly the entire time 

 from 1842 to 1855. 



> was one of the founders of the Re- 

 publican party, and was active in the nomina- 

 tion of Lincoln in 1860. He was governor of 

 Illinois from 1860 to 1865, and none of the 

 other "war governors" served his country more 

 intelligently or with greater zeal. He wa-* 

 elected to the United States Senate in 1865 and 

 served until 1871, covering in his term the 

 period of Reconstruction. His son, Richard 

 (born 1860), was governor of Illinois from 1901 

 to 1903. 



YAZOO, yaz'oo, an Indian word meaning 

 r of death, is the name of a river in North- 

 cm Mississippi, formed by the junction of 

 the Yalobusha, Tallahatchie and several Mis- 

 sissippi bayous. It winds slowly southwest for 

 300 miles, flowing into the Mississippi eleven 

 miles from Vicksburg. It is navigable for prac- 

 tically its entire course at all seasons of the 

 year. Yazoo City, a town with various cotton 

 mills and cotton by-products factories, and 

 Greenwood, an important shipping center in 

 the cotton industry, are the principal towns on 

 its banks. 



YEAR, yur, the period of time measuring a 

 complete revolution of the earth around the 

 sun. The solar equinoctial, or tropical, year, 

 which may be defined as the interval of time 

 between two successive passages of the sun 

 through the juinox, is 365 days, 5 



hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds. As the motion 

 of the earth relative to tin- qiiiiiux ! 



' hangcs of seasons, this year is used for all 

 and astronomical purposes, and is tin 

 basis of the common, or c.-il The 



use of a calendar year of 365 days makes neces- 

 sary the introduction of an extra day < 

 fourth year to correct the difference bctv 

 the calendar year and the true year. This 

 fourth year is called leap year, and the 

 day is February 29. As the addition of a day, 

 however, overcorrects the difference by 44 inm- 

 400 



utes 56 seconds, leap year is omitted in century 

 years, except those divisible by 400. Thus 

 1700, 1800 and 1900 only had 365 days, but 

 2000 will have 366 days. This omission now 

 makes the difference between calendar and true 

 time a matter of only one day in several thou- 

 sand years. 



The sidereal year consists of 365 days, 6 

 hours, 9 minutes, 9 seconds. This is the time 

 required for the earth to make a complete cir- 

 cle of its orbit. It differs in length from the 

 solar, or tropical, year because of the precession 

 of the equinoxes. The sidereal year is seldom 

 used except for astronomical calculations. 



In most Christian nations the calendar year 

 now begins on January 1. The ancient Roman 

 year, before the adoption of the Julian calen- 

 dar, began on March 1, while the Jewish civil 

 year began at the autumnal equinox. The 

 Church, or sacred, year of the Jews, however, 

 began at the vernal equinox. As the Moham- 

 medan year is a lunar year of 354 days, meas- 

 ured by the periods of the time, the beginning 

 of the year continually falls earlier in the 

 seasons. During the Middle Ages most Euro- 

 pean nations considered March 1 or March 25 

 as the first day of the calendar year. By 1600 

 nearly all civilized countries except England 

 recognized January 1 as the first day. England 

 adopted the Gregorian calendar on January 1, 

 1752. The Church calendar adopted in the 

 Roman Catholic and most Protestant churches 

 is regulated by the solar and partly by the 

 lunar year, thus causing the distinction between 

 fixed and movable feasts. The fixed feast days 

 are determined by the solar year, the movable 

 feasts by the lunar. 



Itrlntril Subject*. In connection with this 

 discussion, the reader may consult the following: 

 .11 ti< Irs in these volumes: 

 Calendar Precession of the 



Earth, subhead Motions Equinoxes 



of the Earth Seasons 



Epoch Sidrreal Time 



Equinox Time 



Leap Year 



YEAST, 7/nxf. The action of bread dough 

 which has been set to "rise" is familiar to al- 

 most everyone, and < \cn tho nmall child knows 

 that mother puts yeast in tho sponge (see 

 below) to get the desired result. The child, 

 lumen r. may not know that the yeast is a 

 mass of tiny, one-celled plants, which are among 

 the simplest forms in the vegetable kingdom. 

 The yeast plant IB classed as a fungus (see 

 FUNGI). It is produced by the process of fer- 

 mentation, and multiplies by budding. That 



