Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/595

576 UMBER, a brown mineral pigment consisting of hydrated iron and manganese oxides. The finely-powdered mineral is known as raw umber; when calcined the beauty of the colour increases and the pigment is known as burnt amber. It was probably first obtained from Umbria in Italy, but it occurs in many localities, notably in Cyprus (Turkey umber); large quantities of English amber are mined in Devonshire and Cornwall. (See .)

 UMBRA (Lat. for shade or shadow), in astronomy, the completely dark portion of the shadow of a heavenly body, filling the space within which the sun is entirely hidden. The body being supposed spherical, the umbra is a cone circumscribing both the sun and the body that casts the shadow. The term is also given to the interior and darkest part of a sunspot. (See

 UMBRELLA, a portable folding protector from rain (Fr. parapluie), the name parasol being given to the smaller and more fanciful article carried by ladies as a sunshade, and the en-tout-cas being available for both purposes. Primarily the umbrella (ombrella, Ital. dim. from Lat. umbra, shade) was a sunshade alone—its original home having been in hot, brilliant climates. In Eastern countries from the earliest times the umbrella was one of the insignia of royalty and power. On the sculptured remains of ancient Nineveh and Egypt there are representations of kings and sometimes of lesser potentates going in procession with an umbrella carried over their heads; and throughout Asia the umbrella had, and still has, something of the same significance. The Mahratta princes of India had among their titles “ lord of the umbrella.” In 1855 the king of Burma in addressing the governor-general of India termed himself “ the monarch who reigns over the great umbrella wearing chiefs of the Eastern countries.” The baldachins erected over ecclesiastical chairs, altars and portals, and the canopies of thrones and pulpits, &c., are in their origin closingly related to umbrellas, and have the same symbolic significance. In each of the basilica churches of Rome there still hangs a large umbrella.

Among the Greeks and Romans the umbrella (σκιάς, σκιάδειον, umbraculum, umbella) was used by ladies, while the carrying of it by men was regarded as a sign of effeminacy. Probably in these southern climes it never went out of use, and allusions by Montaigne show that in his day its employment as a sunshade was quite common in Italy. The umbrella was not unknown in England in the 17th century, and was already used as a rain protector. Michael Drayton, writing about the beginning of the 17th century, says, speaking of doves:&mdash;
 * "And, like umbrellas, with their feathers
 * Shield you in all sorts of weathers."

Although it was the practice to keep an umbrella in the coffee-houses early in the 18th century, its use cannot have been very familiar, for in 1752 Colonel Wolfe, writing from Paris, mentions the carrying of them there as a defence against both rain and sun, and wonders that they are not introduced into England. The traveller Jonas Hanway, who died in 1786, is credited with having been the first Englishman who habitually carried an umbrella.

The umbrella, as at first used, was based on its Eastern prototype, and was a heavy, ungainly article which did not hold well together. It had a long handle, with ribs of whalebone or cane, very rarely of metal, and stretchers of cane. The jointing of the ribs and stretchers to the stick and to each other was very rough and imperfect. The covering material consisted of oiled silk or cotton, heavy in substance, and liable to stick together in the folds. Gingham soon came to be substituted for the oiled cloth, and in 1848 William Sangster patented the use of alpaca as an umbrella covering material. One of the most notable inventions for combinin lightness, strength and elasticity in the ribs of umbrellas was tie “ Paragon ” rib patented by Samuel Fox in 1852. It is formed of a thin strip of steel rolled into a U or trough section, a form which gives great strength for the weight of metal. Umbrella silk is chiefly made at Lyons and Crefeld; much of it is so loaded that it cuts readily at the folds. Textures of pure silk or of silk and alpaca mixed have better wear-resisting properties.

 UMBRIA, the name of an ancient and a modern district of Italy.

1. The ancient district was bounded in the period of the Roman supremacy by the Ager Gallicus (in a line with Ravenna) on the N., by Etruria (the Tiber) on the W., by the Sabine territory on the S. and by Picenum on the E. The Via Flaminia passed up through it from Ocriculum to Ariminum; along it lay the important towns of Narnia (Narni), Carsulae, Mevania (Bevagna), Forum Flaminii, Nuceria Camellaria (Nocera) and Forum Sempronii; and on the Adriatic coast Fanum Fortunae (Fano) and Pisaurum (Pesaro). To the east lay Interamna (Terni), Spoletium (Spoleto), Fulginium (Foligno — on a branch of the Via Flaminia which left the main road at Varina and rejoined it at Forum Flaminii) and the important town of Camerinum on the side of the Apennines towards Picenum. On the side towards Etruria lay Ameria (Amelia) and Tuder (Todi), both on the direct road from Rome to Perusia, Iguvium, which occupied a very advantageous position close to the main pass through the Apennines, and Hispellum (Spello). Not far off was Assisium (Assisi), whilst far to the north in the mountains lay Sarsina. Under the empire it formed the sixth region of Italy. In earlier times it embraced a far larger area. Herodotus (IV.49) describes it as extending to the Alps, and the ascribed to Scylax (a treatise which embodies material of the 4th century  or earlier) makes Umbria conterminous with Samnium. Furthermore, place-names of undoubted Umbrian origin abound in Etruria and are also found in the Po valley. Thus in the early days of Italian history Umbria may be taken as having extended over the greater part of northern and central Italy.

The name Umbria is derived from the Umbri, one of the chief constituent stocks of the Italian nation. The origin and ethnic affinities of the Umbrians are still in some degree a matter of dispute, but their language proves them to have been an Aryan people closely allied with the Oscans and in a remoter degree with the Latins. Archaeological considerations further show with approximate certainty that the Umbri are to be identified with the creators of the (q.v.), and probably also of the  (q.v.), culture in northern and central Italy, who at the beginning of the Bronze Age displaced the original Ligurian population by an invasion from the north-east. From the time and starting-point of their migrations, as well as from their type of culture, it may be provisionally inferred that the Umbrians were cognate with the Achaeans of prehistoric Greece. Pliny's statement (III.13, 19) that they were the most ancient race of Italy may certainly be rejected.

The process by which the Umbrians were deprived of their predominance in upper and central Italy and restricted to their confines of historic times cannot be traced in any detail. A tradition declares that their easternmost territory in the region of Ancona was wrested from them by the Picentes, a branch of the Sabine stock. It may also be conjectured that they were partly displaced in the valley of the Po by the Gaulish tribes which began to pour across the Alps from about 500 But their chief enemies were undoubtedly the Etruscans. These invaders, whose encroachments can be determined by archaeological evidence as proceeding from the western seaboard towards the north and east, and as lasting from about 700 to 500, eventually drove the Umbrians into that upland tract athwart the Apennines to which the name of Umbria belonged in historical times. In the course of this struggle the Etruscans are said to have captured 200 Umbrian towns. Nevertheless the Umbrian element of population does not seem to have been eradicated in the conquered districts. Strabo records a tradition that the Umbrians recovered their ground in the plain of the Po at the expense of the Etruscans, and states that the colonies subsequently founded in this region by the Romans contained large Umbrian contingents. In Etruria proper the persistence of the Umbrian stock is indicated by the survival of numerous Umbrian place-names, and by the record of Umbrian soldiers taking part in Etruscan enterprises, e.g. the 