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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kalmuck

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​KALMUCK, or Kalmyk Steppe, a territory or reservation belonging to the Kalmuck or Kalmyk Tatars, in the Russian government of Astrakhan, bounded by the Volga on the N.E., the Manych on the S.W., the Caspian Sea on the E., and the territory of the Don Cossacks on the N.W. Its area is 36,900 sq. m., to which has to be added a second reservation of 3045 sq. m. on the left bank of the lower Volga. According to I. V. Mushketov, the Kalmuck Steppe must be divided into two parts, western and eastern. The former, occupied by the Ergeni hills, is deeply trenched by ravines and rises 300 and occasionally 630 ft. above the sea. It is built up of Tertiary deposits, belonging to the Sarmatian division of the Miocene period and covered with loess and black earth, and its escarpments represent the old shore-line of the Caspian. No Caspian deposits are found on or within the Ergeni hills. These hills exhibit the usual black earth flora, and they have a settled population. The eastern part of the steppe is a plain, lying for the most part 30 to 40 ft. below the level of the sea, and sloping gently towards the Volga. Post-Pliocene “Aral-Caspian deposits,” containing the usual fossils (Hydrobia, Neritina, eight species of Cardium, two of Dreissena, three of Adacna and Lithoglyphus caspius), attain thicknesses varying from 105 ft. to 7 or 10 ft., and disappear in places. Lacustrine and fluviatile deposits occur intermingled with the above. Large areas of moving sands exist near Enotayevsk, where high dunes or barkhans have been formed. A narrow tract of land along the coast of the Caspian, known as the “hillocks of Baer,” is covered with hillocks elongated from west to east, perpendicularly to the coast-line, the spaces between them being filled with water or overgrown with thickets of reed, Salix, Ulmus campestris, almond trees, &c. An archipelago of little islands is thus formed close to the shore by these mounds, which are backed on the N. and N.W. by strings of salt lakes, partly desiccated. Small streams originate in the Ergenis, but are lost as soon as they reach the lowlands, where water can only be obtained from wells. The scanty vegetation is a mixture of the flora of south-east Russia and that of the deserts of central Asia. The steppe has an estimated population of 130,000 persons, living in over 27,700 kibitkas, or felt tents. There are over 60 Buddhist monasteries. Part of the Kalmucks are settled (chiefly in the hilly parts), the remainder being nomads. They breed horses, cattle and sheep, but suffer heavy losses from murrain. Some attempts at agriculture and tree-planting are being made. The breeding of livestock, fishing, and some domestic trades, chiefly carried on by the women, are the principal sources of maintenance.
See I. V. Mushketov, Geol. Researches in the Kalmyk Steppe in 1884–1885 (St Petersburg, 1894, in Russian); Kostenkov’s works (1868–1870); and other works quoted in Semenov’s Geogr. Dict. and Russ. Encycl. Dict. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kaluga (government)

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​KALUGA, a government of middle Russia, surrounded by those of Moscow, Smolensk, Orel and Tula, with an area of 11,942 sq. m. Its surface is an undulating plain, reaching 800 to 900 ft. in its highest parts, which lie in the S.W., and deeply trenched by watercourses, especially in the N.E. The Oka, a main tributary of the Volga, and its confluents (the Zhizdra and Ugra) drain all but a strip of country in the west, which is traversed by the Bolva, an affluent of the Dnieper. The government is built up mainly of carboniferous deposits (coal-bearing), with patches of the soft Jurassic clays and limestones which formerly covered them. Cretaceous deposits occur in the S.W., and Devonian limestones and shales crop out in the S.E. The government is covered with a thick layer of boulder clay in the north, with vast ridges and fields of boulders brought during the Glacial Period from Finland and the government of Olonets; large areas in the middle are strewn with flint boulders and patches of loess are seen farther south. The mean annual temperature is 41° F. Iron ores are the chief mineral wealth, nearly 40,000 persons being engaged in mining. Beds of coal occur in several places, and some of them are worked. Fireclay, china-clay, chalk, grindstone, pure quartz sand, phosphorite and copper are also extracted. Forests cover 20% of the surface, and occur chiefly in the south. The soil is not very suitable for agriculture, and owing to a rather dense population, considerable numbers of the inhabitants find occupation in industry, or as carriers and carpenters for one-half of the year at the Black Sea ports.
The population (1,025,705 in 1860) was 1,176,353 in 1897, nearly all Great Russians. There were 116 women to 100 men, and out of the total population 94,853 lived in towns. The estimated population in 1906 was 1,287,300. Of the total area over 4,000,000 acres are owned by the peasant communities, nearly 3,000,000 acres by private owners and some 250,000 by the Crown. The principal crops are rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, and potatoes. Hemp is grown for local use and export. Bees are kept. The chief non-agricultural industries are distilleries, iron-works, factories for cloth, cottons, paper, matches, leather and china, flour-mills and oil works. Large quantities of wooden wares are fabricated in the villages of the south. A considerable trade is carried on in hemp, hempseed and hempseed oil, corn and hides; and iron, machinery, leather, glass, chemicals and linen are exported. The government is divided into 11 districts, the chief towns of which, with their populations in 1897, are: Kaluga (49,728), Borovsk (8407), Kozelsk (5908), Likhvin (1776), Maloyaroslavets (2500), Medyn (4392), Meshchovsk (3667), Mosalsk (2652), Peremyshl (3956), Tarusa (1989) and Zhizdra (5996). (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kalpi

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​KALPI, or Calpee, a town of British India, in the Jalaun district of the United Provinces, on the right bank of the Jumna, 45 m. S.W. of Cawnpore. Pop. (1901), 10,139. It was founded, according to tradition, by Vasudeva, at the end of the 4th century A.D. In 1196 it fell to Kutab-ud-din, the viceroy of Mahommed Ghori, and during the subsequent Mahommedan period it played a large part in the annals of this part of India. About the middle of the 18th century it passed into the hands of the Mahrattas. It was captured by the British in 1803, and since 1806 has remained in British possession. In May 1858 Sir Hugh Rose (Lord Strathnairn) defeated here a force of about 10,000 rebels under the rani of Jhansi. Kalpi had a mint for copper coinage in the reign of Akbar; and the East India Company made it one of their principal stations for providing the “commercial investment.” The old town, which is beside the river, has ruins of a fort, and several temples of interest, while in the neighbourhood are many ancient tombs. There is a lofty modern tower ornamented with representations of the battles of the Ramayana. The new town lies away from the river to the south-east. Kalpi is still a centre of local trade (principally in grain, ghi and cotton), with a station on the Indian Midland railway from Jhansi to Cawnpore, which here crosses the Jumna. There are manufactures of sugar and paper.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melville, Herman

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​MELVILLE, HERMAN (1819–1891), American author, was born in New York City on the 1st of August 1819. He shipped as a cabin-boy at the age of eighteen, thus being enabled to make his first visit to England, and at twenty-two sailed for a long whaling cruise in the Pacific. After a year and a half he deserted his ship at the Marquesas Islands, on account of the cruelty of the captain; was captured by cannibals on the island of Nukahiva, and detained, without hardship, four months; was rescued by the crew of an Australian vessel, which he joined, and two years later reached New York. Thereafter, with the exception of a passenger voyage around the world in 1860, Melville remained in the United States, devoting himself to literature—though for a considerable period (1866–1885) he held a post in the New York custom-house—and being perhaps Hawthorne’s most intimate ​friend among the literary men of America. His writings are numerous, and of varying merit; his verse, patriotic and other, is forgotten; and his works of fiction and of travel are of irregular execution. Nevertheless, few authors have been enabled so freely to introduce romantic personal experiences into their books: in his first work, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, or Four Month’s Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas (1846), he described his escape from the cannibals; while in Omoo, a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847), White Jacket, or The World in a Man-of-War (1850), and especially Moby Dick, or The Whale (1851), he portrayed seafaring life and character with vigour and originality, and from a personal knowledge equal to that of Cooper, Marryat or Clark Russell. But these records of adventure were followed by other tales so turgid, eccentric, opinionative, and loosely written as to seem the work of another author. Melville was the product of a period of American literature when the fiction written by writers below Irving, Poe and Hawthorne was measured by humble artistic standards. He died in New York on the 28th of September 1891.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Melville, Sir James

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​MELVILLE, SIR JAMES (1535–1617), Scottish diplomatist and memoir writer, was the third son of Sir John Melville, laird of Raith in the county of Fife, who was executed for treason in 1548. One of his brothers was Robert, 1st Baron Melville of Monimail (1527–1621). James Melville in 1549 went to France to become page to Mary Queen of Scots. Serving on the French side at the battle of St Quentin in 1557 Melville was wounded and taken prisoner. He subsequently carried out a number of diplomatic missions for Henry II. of France. On Mary’s return to Scotland in 1561 she gave Melville a pension and an appointment in her household, and she employed him as special emissary to reconcile Queen Elizabeth to her marriage with Darnley. After the murder of Darnley in February 1567, Melville joined Lord Herries in boldly warning Mary of the danger and disgrace of her projected marriage with Bothwell, and was only saved from the latter’s vengeance in consequence by the courageous resolution of the queen. During the troubled times following Mary’s imprisonment and abdication Melville conducted several diplomatic missions of importance, and won the confidence of James VI. when the king took the government into his own hands. Having been adopted as his heir by the reformer Henry Balnaves, he inherited from him, at his death in 1579, the estate of Halhill in Fife; and he retired thither in 1603, refusing the request of James to accompany him to London on his accession to the English throne. At Halhill Melville wrote the Memoirs of my own Life, a valuable authority for the history of the period, first published by his grandson, George Scott, in 1683. Sir James Melville died at Halhill on the 13th of November 1617. By his wife, Christina Boswell, he had one son and two daughters; the elder of these, Elizabeth, who married John Colville, de jure 3rd Baron Colville of Culross, has been identified with the authoress of a poem published in 1603, entitled Ane Godlie Dreame.
See the Memoirs mentioned above, of which the most modern edition is that prepared by T. Thompson for the Bannatyne Club (Edinburgh, 1827).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Memel (river)

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​MEMEL, or Niemen, a river of Russia and Prussia, rising in the middle of the Russian government of Minsk at an altitude of 580 ft. and flowing generally west as far as Grodno. Thence it runs north to Kovno, separating Poland from Russia, and at Kovno it turns west again, still dividing Poland from Russia, until it enters the Prussian province of East Prussia, through which it flows west and north-west past Tilsit for a distance of 70 m. and finally enters the Kurisches Haff by several arms. Of these, those principally used for navigation are the Russ, and its chief branch the Atmat. The Russ is connected with the outlet of the Kurisches Haff at Memel by a canal, while another canal links the Gilge arm southward with the Pregel. Considerable quantities of timber are floated down the Memel, and large amounts of corn shipped down it and its navigable tributary the Viliya. The lowlands of Tilsit are protected against inundation by dikes. Total length of the river, 490 m.; area of its basin, 34,950 sq. m. It is navigable for large vessels as far as Grodno.
See H. Keller, Memel, Pregel und Weichselstrom (2 vols., Berlin, 1900); and Schickert, Wasserwege und Deichwesen in der Memelniederung (Königsberg, 1901).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Memel (town)

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​MEMEL, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, the most northerly town of the German empire, 91 m. by rail N.E. of Königsberg, at the mouth of the Dange, and on the bank of a sound, called the Memeler Tief, which connects the Kurische Haff with the Baltic. Pop. (1905), 20,687. On the side next the sea the town is defended by a citadel and other fortifications, and the entrance to the harbour is protected by a lighthouse. Memel has been largely rebuilt since a destructive fire in 1854. It possesses iron-foundries, shipbuilding yards, breweries, distilleries, and manufactories of chemicals, soap and amber wares. By far the most important interest of the town, however, is its transit trade in timber and the grain and other agricultural products of Lithuania, and also herrings and other kinds of fish. The timber is brought by river from the forests of Russia, and is prepared for export in numerous saw-mills. The annual value of timber exported is above £1,000,000. A Prussian national memorial was unveiled here in the presence of the emperor William II. in September 1907.
Memel was founded in 1252 by Poppo von Osterna, grand master of the Teutonic order, and was at first called New Dortmund and afterwards Memelburg. It soon acquired a considerable trade, and joined the Hanseatic League. During the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries it was repeatedly burned by its hostile neighbours, the Lithuanians and Poles, and in the 17th century it remained for some time in the possession of Sweden. In 1757, and again in 1813, it was occupied by Russian troops. After the battle of Jena, King Frederick William III. retired to Memel; and here, in 1807, a treaty was concluded between England and Prussia. The poet Simon Dach was a native of Memel.
See J. Sembritzki, Geschichte der königlich preussischen See- und Handelsstadt Memel (Memel, 1900); and Memel in 19 Jahrhundert (Memel, 1902).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Memmius, Gaius

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​MEMMIUS, GAIUS (incorrectly called Gemellus, “The Twin”), Roman orator and poet, tribune of the people (66 B.C.), friend of Lucretius and Catullus. At first a strong supporter of Pompey, he quarrelled with him, and went over to Caesar, whom he had previously attacked. In 54, as candidate for the consulship, he lost Caesar’s support by revealing a scandalous transaction in which he and his fellow candidate had been implicated (Cic. Ad Att. iv. 15–18). Being subsequently condemned for illegal practices at the election, he withdrew to Athens, and afterwards to Mytilene. He died about the year 49. He is remembered chiefly because it was to him that Lucretius addressed the De rerum natura, perhaps with the idea of making him a convert to the doctrines of Epicurus. It appears from Cicero (Ad Fam. xiii. 1) that he possessed an estate on which were the ruins of Epicurus’ house, and that he had determined to build on the site a house for himself. According to Ovid (Trist. ii. 433) he was the author of erotic poems. He possessed considerable oratorical abilities, but his contempt for Latin letters and preference for Greek models impaired his efficiency as an advocate (Cic. Brut. 70).
Another Gaius Memmius, tribune in 111 B.C., attacked the aristocrats on a charge of corrupt relations with Jugurtha. Memmius subsequently stood for the consulship in 99, but was slain in a riot stirred up by his rival the praetor Glaucia. Sallust describes him as an orator, but Cicero (De oratore, ii. 59, 70) had a poor opinion of him.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Membranelle

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​MEMBRANELLE, an organ in Ciliate Infusoria (q.v.), a flattened assemblage of adherent cilia, like the plates of Ctenophora (q.v.): such are arranged in a series in the adoral wreath of the Heterothrichaceae Oligotrichaceae and Hypotrichaceae and constitute the posterior girdle of Peritricha.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Memmingen

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​MEMMINGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on the Ach, a tributary of the Iller, 35 m. S.W. of Augsburg on the railway to Ulm. Pop. (1905), 11,618. It is partly surrounded with walls, and has some interesting old gates and houses. It contains the fine Gothic church of St Martin, which contains 67 beautifully carved choir-stalls, and a town hall dating from about 1580. Its industrial products are yarn, calico, woollen goods, thread. A considerable trade is carried on in hops, which are extensively cultivated in the neighbourhood, and in cattle, wool, leather and grain.
Memmingen, first mentioned in a document of 1010, belonged originally to the Guelf family, and later to the Hohenstaufens. In 1286 it became a free city of the empire, a position which it maintained down to 1802, when it was allotted to Bavaria. In 1331 it was a member of the league of, Swabian towns; in 1530 it was one of the four towns which presented the Confessio Tetrapolitana to the emperor Ferdinand I.; and a few years later it joined the league of Schmalkalden. During the Thirty Years’ War it was alternately occupied by the Swedes and the Imperialists. In May 1800 the French gained a victory over the Austrians near Memmingen.
See Dobel, Memmingen im Reformationszeitalter (Augsburg, 1877–1878), and Clauss, Memmingen Chronik, 1826–1892 (Memmingen, 1894).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Karrer, Felix

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​KARRER, FELIX (1825–1903), Austrian geologist, was born in Venice on the 11th of March 1825. He was educated in Vienna, and served for a time in the war department, but he retired from the public service at the age of thirty-two, and devoted himself to science. He made especial studies of the Tertiary formations and fossils of the Vienna Basin, and investigated the geological relations of the thermal and other springs in that region. He became an authority on the foraminifera, on which subject he published numerous papers. He wrote also a little book entitled Der Boden der Hauptstädte Europas (1881). He died in Vienna on the 19th of April 1903.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Karshi

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​KARSHI, a town of Bokhara, in Central Asia, situated 96 m. S.E. of the city of Bokhara, in a plain at the junction of two main confluents of the Kashka-darya. It is a large and straggling place, with a citadel, and the population amounts to 25,000. There are three colleges, and the Biki mosque is a fine building inlaid with blue and white tiles. Along the river stretches a fine promenade sheltered by poplars. Poppies and tobacco are largely grown, the tobacco being deemed the best in Central Asia. There is a considerable trade in grain; but the commercial prosperity of Karshi is mainly due to its being a meeting-point for the roads from Samarkand, Bokhara, Hissar, Balkh and Maimana, and serves as the market where the Turkomans and Uzbegs dispose of their carpets, knives and firearms. Its coppersmiths turn out excellent work. Karshi was a favourite residence of Timur (Tamerlane).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Karst

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​KARST, in physical geography, the region east of the northern part of the Adriatic. It is composed of high and dry limestone ridges. The country is excessively faulted by a long series of parallel fractures that border the N.E. Adriatic and continue inland that series of steps which descend beneath the sea and produce the series of long parallel islands off the coast of Triest and along the Dalmatian shore. It has been shown by E. Suess (Antlitz der Erde, vol. i. pt. 2, ch. iii.) that the N. Adriatic is a sunken dish that has descended along these fractures and folds, which are not uncommonly the scene of earthquakes, showing that these movements are still in progress. The crust is very much broken in consequence and the water sinks readily through the broken limestone rocks, which owing to their nature are also very absorbent. The result is that the scenery is barren and desolate, and as this structure always, wherever found, gives rise to similar features, a landscape of this character is called a Karst landscape. The water running in underground channels dissolves and denudes away the underlying rock, producing great caves as at Adelsberg, and breaking the surface with sinks, potholes and unroofed chasms. The barren nature of a purely limestone country is seen in the treeless regions of some parts of Derbyshire, while the underground streams and sinks of parts of Yorkshire, and the unroofed gorge formed by the Cheddar cliffs, give some indication of the action that in the high fractured mountains of the Karst produces a depressing landscape which has some of the features of the “bad lands” of America, though due to a different cause.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Karsten, Karl Johann Bernhard

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​KARSTEN, KARL JOHANN BERNHARD (1782–1853), German mineralogist, was born at Bützow in Mecklenburg, on the 26th of November 1782. He was author of several comprehensive works, including Handbuch der Eisenhüttenkunde (2 vols., 1816; 3rd ed., 1841); System der Metallurgie geschichtlich, statistisch, theoretisch und technisch (5 vols. with atlas, 1831–1832); Lehrbuch der Salinenkunde (2 vols., 1846–1847). He was well known as editor of the Archiv für Bergbau und Hüttenwesen (20 vols., 1818–1831); and (with H. von Dechen) of the Archiv für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Bergbau und Hüttenkunde (26 vols., 1820–1854). He died at Berlin on the 22nd of August 1853. His son, Dr Hermann Karsten (1809–1877), was professor of mathematics and physics in the university of Rostock.