Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/313

 William O’Brien, 4th earl of Inchiquin. Anne’s daughter Mary c. 1721–1791) and her granddaughter Mary (1755–1831) were both countesses of Orkney in their own right; the younger Mary married Thomas Fitzmaurice (1742–1795), son of John Petty, earl of Shelburne, and was succeeded in the title by her grandson, Thomas John Hamilton Fitzmaurice (1803–1877), whose descendants still hold the earldom.

ORKNEY, ELIZABETH HAMILTON, (c. 1657–1733), mistress of the English King William III., daughter of Colonel Sir Edward Villiers of Richmond, was born about 1657. Her mother, Frances Howard, daughter of the 2nd earl of Suffolk, was governess to the princesses Mary and Anne, and secured place and influence for her children in Mary’s household. Edward Villiers, afterwards created 1st earl of Jersey (1656–1711), became master of the horse, while his sisters Anne and Elizabeth were among the maids of honour who accompanied Mary to the Hague on her marriage. Elizabeth Villiers became William’s acknowledged mistress in 1680. After his accession to the English crown he settled on her a large share of the confiscated Irish estates of James II. This grant was revoked by parliament, however, in 1699. Mary’s distrust of Marlborough was fomented by Edward Villiers, and the bitter hostility between Elizabeth Vilhers and the duchess of Marlborough perhaps helped to secure the duke’s disgrace with Wiliam. Shortly after Mary’s death, William, actuated, it is said, by his wife’s expressed wishes, broke with Elizabeth Villiers, who was married to her cousin, Lord George Hamilton, fifth son of the 3rd duke of Hamilton, in November 1695. The husband was gratified early in the next year with the titles of earl of Orkney, viscount of Kirkwall and Baron Dechmont. The countess of Orkney served her husband’s interests with great skill, and the marriage proved a happy one. She died in London on the 19th of April 1733.

ORKNEY, GEORGE HAMILTON, (1666–1737), British soldier, was the fifth son of William, duke of Hamilton, and was trained for the military career by his uncle. Lord Dumbarton, in the 1st Foot. In 1689 he became lieut.-colonel and a few months later brevet colonel. He served at the battles of the Boyne and of Aughrim, and, at the head of the Royal Fusiliers, at Steinkirk. As colonel of his old regiment, the 1st Foot, he took part in the battle of Landen or Neerwinden, and in the siege of Namur, serving also at Athlone and Limerick in the Irish war. At Namur Hamilton received a severe wound, and in recognition of his services was made a brigadier. In 1695 he married Elizabeth Vilhers (see above), who was “the wisest woman” Swift “ever knew.” The following year he was made earl of Orkney in the Scottish peerage. As a major-general he took the field with Marlborough in Flanders, and on January 1st, 1703–1704 he became lieutenant-general. At Blenheim it was Orkney’s command which carried the village, and in June 1705 he led a flying column which marched from the Moselle to the rescue of Liege. At Ramillies he headed the pursuit of the defeated French, at Oudenarde he played a distinguished part and in 1708 he captured the forts of St Amand and St Martin at Tournay. At the desperately fought battle of Malplaquet Lord Orkney’s battalions led the assault on the French entrenchments, and suffered very severe losses. He remained with the army in Flanders till the end of the war, as “general of the foot,” and at the peace he was made colonel-commandant of the 1st Foot as a reward for his services. He occupied various civil and military posts of importance, culminating with the appointment of “field marshal of all His Majesty’s forces” in 1736. This appointment is the first instance of field marshal’s rank (as now understood) in the British Service. A year later he died in London.

ORKNEY ISLANDS, a group of islands, forming a county, off the north coast of Scotland. The islands are separated from the mainland by the Pentland Firth, which is 6 m. wide between Brough Ness in the island of South Ronaldshay and Duncansbay Head in Caithness-shire. The group is commonly estimated to consist of 67 islands, of which 30 are inhabited (though in the case of four of them the population comprises only the lighthouse attendants), but the number may be increased to as many as 90 by including rocky islets more usually counted with the islands of which they probably once formed part. The Orkneys lie between 58° 41′ and 59° 24′ N., and 2° 22′ and 3° 26′ W., measure 50 m. from N.E. to S.W. and 29 m. from E. to W., and cover 240,476 acres or 375·5 sq. m. Excepting on the west coasts of the larger islands, which present rugged cliff scenery remarkable both for beauty and for colouring, the group lies somewhat low and is of bleak aspect, owing to the absence of trees. The highest hills are found in Hoy. The only other islands containing heights of any importance are Pomona, with Ward Hill (880 ft.), and Wideford (740 ft.) and Rousay. Nearly all of the islands possess lakes, and Loch Harray and Loch Stenness in Pomona attain noteworthy proportions. The rivers are merely streams draining the high land. Excepting on the west fronts of Pomona, Hoy and Rousay, the coast-line of the islands is deeply indented, and the islands themselves are divided from each other by straits generally called sounds or firths, though off the north-east of Hoy the designation Bring Deeps is used, south of Pomona is Scapa Flow and to the south-west of Eday is found the Fall of Warness. The very names of the islands indicate their nature, for the terminal a or ay is the Norse ey, meaning “island,” which is scarcely disguised even in the words Pomona and Hoy. The islets are usually styled holms and the isolated rocks skerries. The tidal currents, or races, or roost (as some of them are called locally, from the Icelandic) off many of the isles run with enormous velocity, and whirlpools are of frequent occurrence, and strong enough at times to prove a source of danger to small craft. The charm of the Orkneys does not lie in their ordinary physical features, so much as in beautiful atmospheric effects, extraordinary examples of light and shade, and rich coloration of cliff and sea.

Geology.—All the islands of this group are built up entirely of Old Red Sandstone. As in the neighbouring mainland of Caithness, these rocks rest upon the metamorphic rocks of the eastern schists, as may be seen on Pomona, where a narrow strip is exposed between Stromness and Inganess, and again in the small island of Graemsay; they are represented by grey gneiss and granite. The upper division of the Old Red Sandstone is found only in Hoy, where it forms the Old Man and neighbouring cliffs on the N.W. coast. The Old Man presents a characteristic section, for it exhibits a thick pile of massive, current-bedded red sandstones, resting, near the foot of the pinnacle, upon a thin bed of amygdaloidal porphyrite, which in its turn lies unconformably upon steeply inclined flagstones. This bed of volcanic rock may be followed northward in the cliffs, and it may be noticed that it thickens considerably in that direction. The Lower Old Red Sandstone is represented by well-bedded flagstones over most of the islands; in the south of Pomona these are faulted against an overlying series of massive red sandstones, but a gradual passage from the flagstones to the sandstones may be followed from Westray S.E. into Eday. A strong synclinal fold traverses Eday and Shapinsay, the axis being N. and S. Near Haco’s Ness in Shapinsay there is a small exposure of amygdaloidal diabase which is of course older than that in Hoy. Many indications of ice action are found in these islands; striated surfaces are to be seen on the cliffs in Eday and Westray, in Kirkwall Bay and on Stennie Hill in Eday; boulder clay, with marine shells, and with many boulders of rocks foreign to the islands (chalk, oolitic limestone, flint, &c.), which must have been brought up from the region of Moray Firth, rests upon the old strata in many places. Local moraines are found in some of the valleys in Pomona and Hoy.

Climate and Industries.—The climate is remarkably temperate and equable for so northerly a latitude. The average temperature for the year is 46° F., for winter 39° F. and for summer 54° 3′ F. The winter months are January, February and March, the last being the coldest. Spring never begins till April, and it is the middle of June before the heat grows genial. September is frequently the finest month, and at the end of October or beginning of November occurs the peerie (or little) summer, the counterpart of the St Martin’s summer of more southerly climes. The average annual rainfall varies from 33·4 in. to 37 in. Fogs occur during summer and early autumn, and furious gales may be expected four or five times in the year, when the crash of the Atlantic waves is audible for 20 m. To tourists one of the fascinations of the islands is their “nightless summers.” On the longest day the sun rises at 3 o’clock and sets at 9.25, and darkness is unknown, it being possible to read at midnight. Winter, however, is long and depressing. On the shortest day the sun rises at 9.10 and sets at 3.17 The soil generally is a sandy loam or a strong but friable clay, and very fertile. Large quantities of seaweed as well as lime and marl are available for manure. Until the middle of the 19th century