Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 10.djvu/416

LEFT WHITE LADY 356 WHITE SEA D. C. The name arose from the fact that it is built of stone and painted white. The total length is 170 feet; depth 86 feet; height two stories, with a portico, containing the main entrance on the N. side. The corner stone was laid in 1792; the house was first occupied by Presi- dent Adams in 1800; burned by British troops in 1814; and restored in 1818. By metonymy the name has been applied to the office of the presidency itself. There are several other mansions and plantations in the Southern States which have borrowed this titlCo WHITE LADY, a spectral figure which, according to popular legend, appears in many of the castles of Germany, as at Berlin, Neuhaus in Bohemia, Ansbach, Bayreuth, Kleve, Darmstadt, Altenburg, as also in London, Copenhagen, Stock- holm, and elsewhere, by night as well as by day, particularly when the death of any member of the family is imminent. She is regarded as the ancestress of the race, shows herself always in snow- white garments, carries a bunch of keys at her side, and sometimes rocks and watches over the children at night when their nurses sleep. WHITE LEAD, a dense white powder, insoluble in water, but easily dissolved in dilute nitric or acetic acid; extensively employed in painting. WHITE MOUNTAINS, a mountain chain of New England, regarded as an outliner of the Appalachian range, com- mences at the head waters of the Aroos- took river, in Maine, where its first summit is Mount Katahdin, and extends in a broad plateau, from 1,600 to 1,800 feet high nearly across New Hampshire, where it has 20 bold peaks, with deep narrow gorges, wild valleys, beautiful lakes, lofty cascades and torrents, form- ing the "Switzerland of America," and a favorite resort of summer tourists. Mount Washington is the highest sum- mit in New England. The other peaks of White Mountains proper are Mount Madi- son, Mount Clay, Mount Jefferson, Mount Monroe, and Mount Adams. In the Franconia group are Lafayette and Moose Hillock. These mountains fur- nish the chief sources of the Connecticut, Merrimac, and Androscoggin rivers. The rocks are ancient metamorphic, with naked granite and gneiss. There are five "notches," or passages through the mountains: the White Mountain notch, through which the Saco river passes ; the Franconian notch, which permits the passage of the Pemigewasset ; the Pink- ham notch, and the Grafton and Dix- ville notches, through which flows the Androscoggin. A carriage road has been constructed to the summit of Mount Washington on the E, side, and a rail- road on the W. side, the latter com- pleted in 1869. The White Mountains were first visited by white men in 1642, but no settlements were made in the region till about 1771. Since 1868 the mountains have been explored by the New Hampshire Geological Survey. There is a meteorological station on the summit of Mount Washington. WHITE PLAINS, a town in West- chester CO., N. Y.; 26 miles N. N. E. of New York City. It was the scene of several important events during the Revolutionary War, the most prominent of which was the action usually known as the battle of White Plains, though it actually occurred in the town of Green- burg, on the opposite side of the Bronx river, Oct. 28, 1776. After a warm con- test, the commanding eminence of Chat- terton Hill, on which the Americans under Washington were intrenched, was carried by the British under General Howe, the Americans retreating in good Order and without being pursued. The loss on each side was about 300 killed, wounded, and prisoners. Pop. (1910) 15,949; (1920) 21,031. WHITE RIVER. (1) A river of Arkansas, with a course of 800 miles. It joins the Mississippi above the influx of the Arkansas river, and has several im- portant affluents. Together with its tributaries it affords 500 miles of boat navigation. (2) A river in Indiana, formed by the confluence of the East and West Forks, emptying into the Wabash near Mount Carmel. (3) A river of Canada, an affluent of the Yukon. It rises in the coast mountains near the head of Altsekh river; flows for over 200 miles through a rough country in a N. E. direction; and enters the Yukon just above the mouth of the Stewart. Some gold has been found along its course. WHITE RUSSIA, a name given by the people to that part of Russia lying toward the W. and principally inhabited by White Russians. WHITE SEA, a branch of the Arctic Ocean which extends S. W. into the prov- ince of Archangel as far as the 64th parallel. It is separated from the open sea by the peninsula of Kola and a strait 246 miles long, and from 106 miles (between Capes Sviatoi and Kanin) to 28 wide, and divides itself for the most part into three bays, of which the broad- est is the Dwina Bay to the S. E., the S. the Onega Bay, and the longest the Kandalak Bay in the W. Its area, in- cluding the N. E. bay, into which the