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 OSAKA, or, a city of Japan in the province of Settsu. Pop. (1908) 1,226,590. It lies in a plain bounded, except westward, where it opens on Osaka Bay, by hills of considerable height, on both sides of the Yodogawa, or rather its headwater the Aji (the outlet of Lake Biwa), and is so intersected by river-branches and canals as to suggest a comparison with a Dutch town. Steamers ply between Osaka and Kobe-Hiogo or Kobe, and Osaka is an important railway centre. The opening of the railway (1873) drew foreign trade to Kobe, but a harbour for ocean-steamers has been constructed at Osaka. The houses are mainly built of wood, and on the 31st of July 1909 some 12,000 houses and other buildings were destroyed by fire. Shin-sai Bashi Suji, the principal thoroughfare, leads from Kitahama, the district lying on the south side of the Tosabori, to the iron suspension bridge (Shin-sai Bashi) over the Dotom-bori. The foreign settlement is at Kawaguchi at the junction of the Shirinashi and the Aji. It is the seat of a number of European mission stations. Buddhist and Shinto temples are numerous. The principal secular buildings are the castle, the mint and the arsenal. The castle was founded in 1583 by Hideyoshi; the enclosed palace, probably the finest building in Japan, survived the capture of the castle by Iyeyasu (1615), and in 1867 and 1868 witnessed the reception of the foreign legations by the Tokugawa shoguns; but in the latter year it was fired by the Tokugawa party. It now provides military headquarters, containing a garrison and an arsenal. The whole castle is protected by high and massive walls and broad moats. Huge blocks of granite measuring 40 ft. by 10 ft. or more occur in the masonry. The mint, erected and organized by Europeans, was opened in 1871. Osaka possesses iron-works, sugar refineries, cotton spinning mills, ship-yards and a great variety of other manufactures. The trade shows an increase commensurate with that of the population, which in 1877 was only 284,105.

Osaka owes its origin to Rennio Shonin, the eighth head of the Shin-Shu sect, who in 1495–1496 built, on the site now occupied by the castle, a temple which afterwards became the principal residence of his successors. In 1580, after ten years’ successful defence of his position, Kenryo, the eleventh “abbot,” was obliged to surrender; and in 1583 the victorious Hideyoshi made Osaka his capital. The town was opened to foreign trade in 1868.

OSAWATOMIE, a city of Miami county, Kansas, U.S.A., about 45 m. S. by W. of Kansas City, on the Missouri Pacific railway. Pop. (1900) 4191, of whom 227 were negroes; (1905, state census) 4857. A state hospital for the insane (1866) is about 1 m. N.E. of the city. The region is a good one for general farming, and natural gas and petroleum are found in abundance in the vicinity. Osawatomie was settled about 1854 by colonists sent by the Emigrant Aid Company, and was platted in 1855; its name was coined from parts of the words “Osage” and “Pottawatomie.” It was the scene of two of the “battles” of the “Border War,” and of much of the political violence resulting from the clashes between the “pro-slavery” and the “free-state” factions of Missouri and Kansas. On the 7th of June 1856 it was plundered by about 170 pro-slavery men from Missouri. On the 30th of August 1856 General John W. Reid, commanding about 400 Missourians, attacked the town. The attack was resisted by Captain John Brown (who had come to Osawatomie in the autumn of 1855) at the head of about 40 men, who were soon overpowered. Of Captain Brown’s men, four were killed and two were executed. The town was looted and practically destroyed. A park commemorating the battle was dedicated here on the 31st of August 1910.

OSBORN, SHERARD (1822–1875), English admiral and Arctic explorer, the son of an Indian army officer, was born on the 25th of April 1822. Entering the navy as a first-class volunteer in 1837, he was entrusted in 1838 with the command of a gunboat at the attack on Kedah in the Malay Peninsula, and was present at the reduction of Canton in 1841, and at the capture of the batteries of Woosung in 1842. From 1844 till 1848 he was gunnery mate and lieutenant in the flag-ship of Sir George Seymour in the Pacific. He took a prominent part in 1849 in advocating a new search expedition for Sir John Franklin, and in 1850 was appointed to the command of the steam-tender “Pioneer” in the Arctic expedition under Captain Austin, in the course of which he performed (1851) a remarkable sledge-journey to the western extremity of Prince of Wales Island. He published an account of this voyage, entitled Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal (1852), and was promoted to the rank of commander shortly afterwards. In the new expedition (1852–1854) under Sir Edward Belcher he again took part as commander of the “Pioneer.” In 1856 he published the journals of Captain Robert M'Clure, giving a narrative of the discovery of the North-West Passage. Early in 1855 he was called to active service in connexion with the Crimean War, and being promoted to post-rank in August of that year was appointed to the “Medusa,” in which he commanded the Sea of Azoff squadron until the conclusion of the war. For these services he received the C.B., the Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the Medjidie of the fourth class. As commander of the “Furious” he took a prominent part in the operations of the second Chinese War, and performed a piece of difficult and intricate navigation in taking his ship 600 m. up the Yangtse-kiang to Hankow (1858). He returned to England in broken health in 1859, and at this time contributed a number of articles on naval and Chinese topics to Blackwood’s Magazine, and wrote The Career, Last Voyage and Fate of Sir John Franklin (1860). In 1861 he commanded the “Donegal” in the Gulf of Mexico during the trouble there, and in 1862 undertook the command of a squadron fitted out by the Chinese government for the suppression of piracy on the coast of China; but owing to the non-fulfilment of the condition that he should receive orders from the imperial government only, he threw up the appointment. In 1864 he was appointed to the command of the “Royal Sovereign” in order to test the turret system of ship-building, to which this vessel had been adapted. In 1865 he became agent to the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company, and two years later managing director of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company. In 1873 he attained flag-rank. His interest in Arctic exploration had never ceased, and in 1873 he induced Commander Albert Markham to undertake a summer voyage for the purpose of testing the conditions of ice-navigation with the aid of steam, with the result that a new Arctic expedition, under Sir George Nares, was determined upon. He was a member of the committee which made the preparations for this expedition, and died a few days after it had sailed.

OSBORNE, a mansion and estate in the Isle of Wight, England, S.E. of the town of East Cowes. The name of the manor in early times is quoted as Austerborne or Oysterborne, and the estate comprised about 2000 acres when, in 1845, it was purchased from Lady Isabella Blackford by Queen Victoria. The queen subsequently extended the estate to nearly 3000 acres, and a mansion, in simple Palladian style, was built from designs of Mr T. Cubitt. Here the queen died in 1901, and by a letter, dated Coronation Day 1902, King Edward VII. presented the property to the nation. By his desire part of the house was transformed into a convalescent home for officers of the navy and army, opened in 1904.

In 1903 there was opened on the Osborne estate a Royal Naval College. The principal buildings lie near the Prince of Wales’s Gate, the former royal stables being adapted to use as class-rooms, a mess-room, and other apartments, while certain adjacent buildings were also adapted, and a gymnasium and a series of bungalows to serve as dormitories, each accommodating thirty boys, were erected, together with quarters for officers, and for an attached body of marines. By the river Medina, on the Kingsdown portion of the estate, a machine shop and facilities for boating are provided.

At the church of St Mildred, Whippingham, 1 m. S.S.E. of East Cowes, there are memorials to various members of the royal family.

OSCA LINGUA, or, the name given by the Romans to the language of (1) the Samnite tribes, and (2) the inhabitants of Campania (excluding the Greek colonies) from the 4th century