The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 272

KEY WEST (10), a seaport, health resort, and naval station on a coral island 60 m. SW. of Caple Sable, Florida; it has a good harbour and strong fort; was the basis of operations in the Spanish-American War, 1898; exports salt, turtles, and fruit, and manufactures cigars.

KEYNE, ST., a pious virgin, lived in Cornwall about 490, and left her name to a church and to a well whose waters are said to give the upper hand to whichever of a bridal pair first drinks of them after the wedding.

KEYS, HOUSE OF, the third estate in the Isle of Man, consisting of 24 members chosen by themselves, when a vacancy occurs, by presenting to the Governor "two of the oldest and worthiest men in the isle" for his selection.

KEYS, POWER OF THE, power claimed, according to Matt. xvi. 19, by the authorities of the Church to admit or exclude from church members.h.i.+p, a power the Roman Catholics allege conferred at first on St. Peter and afterwards on his successors in office.

KHAMSIN (fifty), a hot sand wind which blows in Egypt from the desert for fifty days, chiefly before and after the month of May.

KHAN, the t.i.tle of a Tartar sovereign or prince; also an Eastern inn or caravansary.

KHANDESH, a district of Bombay in the valley of the Tapti; a great cotton-growing centre; Dhulia, the capital.

KHARKOFF (194), important town in Little Russia, 350 m. NE. of Odessa; has immense horse and wool fairs, and manufactures sugar, soap, felt, and iron; it is a Greek bishopric, a university seat, and has various schools of learning.

KHARTOUM (60), a caravan depot in the Soudan, just above the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, 1100 m. S. of Cairo; was an active slave-trade centre, and commercially important; was captured by the Mahdists in 1885, when General Gordon fell; retaken by Lord Kitchener in 1898; lately has been superseded by Omdurman on the opposite bank of the Nile.

KHATMANDU (50), the capital of Nepal, India, at the confluence of the Baghmati and Vishnumati Rivers, 60 m. N. of the British frontier; is the centre of a considerable trade.

KHEDIVE, the official t.i.tle of the Viceroy of Egypt since 1867, the first to hold it being Ismail, the son of IBRAHIM PASHA (q. v.), by grant of the Sultan, his suzerain.

KHERSON (62), on the Dnieper, 19 m. from the sea and 60 m. E. of Odessa; capital of the Russian government of Kherson; has been surpa.s.sed in importance by Odessa; its trade is in timber, and industries are soap-making, brewing, and wool-cleansing.

KHINGANS, THE, a range of volcanic mountains on the E. of the desert of Gobi.

KHIVA (500), a Turkestan province or khanate in Central Asia, S. of the Sea of Aral; is under Russian protection since 1873; a sandy desert with many oases, and in some parts well irrigated from the Oxus; it produces wheat, rice, cotton, and fruit; climate subject to extremes.

KHIVA, the capital (20), on a ca.n.a.l connected with the Amu, some distance from the left bank of the Oxus, and 300 m. NW. of Merv, is a town of earth huts; it was at one time one of the chief slave-markets in Asia till the traffic was put a stop to by Russia.

KHORa.s.sAN, the largest province of Persia; is on the Afghan border, mountainous, and fertile only in the N. among the valleys of the Elburz range; grain, tobacco, and medicinal plants are grown; gold and silver, turquoises, and other gems found. The capital is Meshed (50), a sacred Moslem city, with carpet, jewellery, and silk manufactures.

KHYBER Pa.s.s, a narrow defile 33 m. long, in one place only 10 ft.

wide, through not lofty but precipitous mountains; lies to the NW. of Peshawur, and is the chief route between the Punjab and Afghanistan; was the scene of a British catastrophe in the war of 1839-42, but has been repeatedly forced since, and since 1879 has been under British control.

KIAKHTA (9), a Russian town in Transbaikalia, Siberia, on the borders of China; an emporium of trade between China and Russia.

KIAO-CHAU, a province of Shantung, China; occupied by Germany in 1897, and ceded to her on a 99 years' lease by China in 1898; extends to about 160 m. along the coast, and about 20 m. inland.

KIDD, WILLIAM, a noted pirate, born of Covenanting parents at Greenock; went to sea early, and served in privateering expeditions with distinction; appointed to the command of a privateer about 1696, and commissioned to suppress the pirates of the Indian Ocean, he went to Madagascar, and there started piracy himself; entering Boston harbour in 1700 he was arrested, sent to London, tried on a charge of piracy and murder, and executed in 1701.

KIDDERMINSTER (26), in the N. of Worcester, 18 m. SW. of Birmingham; has been since 1735 noted for its carpets; manufactures also silk, paper, and leather; was the scene of Richard Baxter's labours as vicar, and the birthplace of Sir Rowland Hill.

KIEFF (184), on the Dnieper, 300 m. N. of Odessa, is a holy city, the capital of the province of Kieff, strongly fortified, and one of the oldest towns in Russia, where Christianity was proclaimed the religion of the country in 988; has St. Vladimir's University, theological schools, and Petchersk monastery; a pilgrim resort; industries unimportant, include tanning and candle-making; trade chiefly in the hands of the Jews.

KIEL (69), on the Baltic, 60 m. N. of Hamburg, is the capital of Schleswig-Holstein, a German naval station and important seaport, with s.h.i.+pments of coal, flour, and dairy produce; has s.h.i.+pbuilding and brewing industries, a university and library, and is the eastern terminus of the Baltic s.h.i.+p Ca.n.a.l, opened 1895.

KIEPERT, HEINRICH, distinguished German cartographer, born at Berlin; was professor of Geography there; his chief works an "Atlas of Asia Minor," and his "Atlas Antiquus"; _b_. 1818.

KIERKEGAARD, SoREN AABY, philosophical and religious thinker, born at Copenhagen; lived a quiet, industrious, literary life, and exerted a chief influence on 19th-century Dano-Norwegian literature; his greatest works are "Either-Or," and "Stadia on Life's Way" (1813-1855).

KIESELGHUR, powder used for polis.h.i.+ng and in the manufacture of dynamite, formed from sh.e.l.ls of microscopic organisms.

KILDA, ST., a lonely island in the Atlantic, 60 m. W. of Harris, 3 m. long by 2 broad, with a precipitous coast and a few poor inhabitants, who live by fis.h.i.+ng and fowling.

KILDARE (70), inland Irish county, in Leinster, in the upper basins of the Liffey and Barrow, W. of Dublin and Wicklow; is level and fertile, with the great Bog of Allen in the N., and in the centre the Curragh, a gra.s.sy plain; agriculture is carried on in the river basins; the county town is Naas (4); other towns Maynooth, with the Roman Catholic theological college, and Kildare.

KILIAN, ST., the first apostle of the Franks, an Irish monk; deputed by the Pope in 686.

KILIMA-NJARO, a volcanic mountain group, 19,000 ft. high, on the northern border of German East Africa, 170 m. from the coast, with two peaks, Kibo and Kimawenzi; in 1894 an Austrian communistic settlement was established on the slopes.

KILKENNY (87), inland Irish county in Leinster, surrounded by Waterford, Tipperary, Queen's County, Carlow, and Wexford, watered by the Barrow, Suir, and Nore; extremely fertile in the S. and E., producing fine corn, hay, and green crops; is moorland, and devoted to cattle-rearing in the N., where also anthracite coal is abundant.

Kilkenny (11), the county town, is noted for a fine black marble quarried near it.

KILLARNEY (5), market-town and tourist centre, in co. Kerry, Ireland, on the sh.o.r.es of the lake, 15 m. SE. of Tralee; has a Roman Catholic cathedral and some arbutus-carving industry.

KILLARNEY, THE LAKES OF, three beautiful lakes at the northern foot of the Macgillicuddy Reeks, in the basin of the Leane, much resorted to by tourists.

KILLIECRANKIE, Pa.s.s OF, 15 m. NW. of Dunkeld, in Perths.h.i.+re, where General Mackay was defeated by Claverhouse, who fell, in 1689; is traversed by a road and a railway.