Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/24

 14 K A S K A T D Anville. AntiquW Gcographique ch I Inde ; Stanislas Juhen, Histoire dc la Vie do Hiouen Thsang ; Journ. of the As Soc. of Senaal, x. (Edgeworth), xiii. (Leech), xvii. (A. Cunningham), xxxv. Rev W G Cowie), xxxix. (Elmslie), &c. ; George Forster, Journey from Bengal to England ; Vigno s Kashmir ; Yule s Marco Polo ; Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan ; Tieffenthaler, La Geo- qraphie de I Indoustan ; Punjab Administration Reports ; R. H. Davies Report on the Trade and Resources of the Countries on the North- West Boundary of British India ; J. E. T. Aitchison, Hand book of the Trade Products of Lch. (R. M L. ) KASIMBAzAR, or COSSIMBAZAB, a decayed town in MurshidabM district, Bengal, 24 7 40&quot; N. lat., 88 19 E. long. Long before the days of Murshid Kuli Khan, who founded and gave his name to the city of Murshidabdd, the trade of Bengal was centred at K&simbazar. The different European nations who traded to India had fac tories there from very early times. An English commer cial agent was appointed to Kasimbazar in 1658 ; ancl^at the close of the century it had become the leading English commercial agency in Bengal. The decay of the town dates from the beginning of the present century, when its climate, which had previously been celebrated for its salubrity, underwent an unexplained change for the worse ; and its ruin was completed in 1813 by a sudden change in the course of the Bhagirathi, on which it stood. The site is now a swamp, marked by a few ruins. KASIMOFF, a town of Eussia, in the Ryazan govern ment, situated in 54 56 N. lat. and 41 3 E. long., 90 miles east-north-east of the government town, on the left bank of the Oka, a tributary of the Volga, It pos sesses a cathedral, and a mosque supposed to have been built by Kasim. Near the mosque stands a mausoleum built by Shah Ali in 1555. Lying on the direct road from Astrakhan to Moscow and Nizhni Novgorod, Kasimoff is a busy place, with numerous industrial establishments. Of special note are the Kasimoff bells, whose jingle may be heard on the post-horses throughout the country. The waiters in the best hotels of St Petersburg are mostly Kasimoff Tartars. Population, according to St Petersburg Calendar for 1874, 12,027. Kasimoff existed in the 14th century under the name of the LIeshtcher.sk Gorodets or Gorodok(from the Meshtcheryaks, a Turko- Finnish tribe). It was laid completely waste by the Mongolians in 1376, but shortly afterwards rebuilt on a new site. About 1452 the place was bestowed by Basil the Dark on the Tartar prince Kasim who had come to assist him in his wars, and thus became the seat of a Tartar principality or kingdom, which lasted till 1677. The last of the line of Kasim accepted Christian baptism, and re ceived the name of Jacob. On his death the principality was in corporated with the empire ; and Peter I. sent a number of the Tartar inhabitants to Voronezh. KASSA. See KASCHATT. KASTAMUNI, sometimes COSTAMBONE, the chief town of a Turkish vilayet of the same name in Asia Minor, is situated on the Gb k Irmak, about 250 miles east of Constantinople. It is the seat of a commercial court, consisting of two Mohammedan and two Christian members. The mosques are said to number thirty-six, and there are four dervish monasteries. Situated as it is in the Angora goat district, Kastamuni has a large trade in goat s hair (about 980,000 Ib annually), and carries on the manu facture of mohair cloth. Copper is obtained in the neigh bourhood, and the copper wares of Kastamuni are well- known in Asia Minor. Coal was for a time worked close to the town, but, the people objecting, it is said, to the smoke, the governor closed the mines. The population is estimated at 40,000. Kastamuni is the Castamon fre quently mentioned by the Byzantine historians. KASTORIA, a town of European Turkey, in the vilayet of Monastir and sandjak of Prisrend, about 33 miles south of Monastir (Bitolia), on the western banks of a lake (6 miles long and 4 broad) which drains into the Indjeh, Karasu, or Bistritza. It is the seat of a caimmacam, and the inhabitants carry on a good trade. Of the twelve quarters of the town three are occupied by Turks, two by Jews, and the rest by Christians. Kastoria is the ancient Celetrum, captured by Sulpicius during the first Macedonian campaign, 200 B.C., and better known for the defence main tained by Bryennius against Alexis I. in 1084 (see Anna Comnena s Alexias). A Byzantine wall with round towers runs across the peninsula on which part of the town is built. Population, 8000. KATER, HENRY (1777-1835), a distinguished physicist of remarkable experimental skill, was born at Bristol, April 16, 1777. At first he purposed studying law; but this he abandoned on his father s death in 1794, and entered the army, obtaining a commission in the 12th regiment of foot, then stationed in India, where he rendered valuable assistance in the great trigonometrical survey. Failing health, however, obliged him to return to England ; and in 1808, being then a lieutenant, he entered on a dis tinguished student career in the senior department of the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Shortly after he was promoted to the rank of captain. In 1814 he retired on half-pay, and devoted the remainder of his life to scientific research. He died at London, April 26, 1835. His first important contribution to scientific knowledge was the comparison of the merits of the Cassegrainian and Gregorian telescopes, from which (Philosophical Transac tions, 1813 and 1814) he deduced that the illuminating power of the former exceeded that of the latter in the proportion of 5 : 2. This inferiority of the Gregorian he explained as being probably due to the mutual interference of the rays as they crossed at the principal focus before reflexion at the second mirror. His most valuable work, however, was the determination of the length of the second s pendulum, first at London and subsequently at various stations throughout the country (Phil. Trans., 1818,1819). In these researches he skilfully took advantage of the well-known property of reciprocity between the centres of suspension and oscillation of an oscillating body, so as to determine experimentally the precise position of the centre of oscillation ; the distance between these centres was then the length of the ideal simple pendulum having the same time of oscillation. As the inventor of the floating collimator, Captain Kater rendered a great service to practical astronomy (Phil, Trans., 1825, 1828). He also published memoirs (Phil, Trans., 1821, 1831) on British standards of length and mass; and in 1832 he published an account of his labours in verifying the Russian standards of length. For his services to Russia in this respect he received in 1814 the decoration of the order of St Anne; and the same year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. His attention was also turned to the subject of compass needles, his Bakerian lecture &quot; On the Best Kind of Steel and Form for a Compass Needle&quot; (Phil. Trans., 1821) containing the results of many interesting and valuable experiments. The treatise on &quot; Mechanics &quot; in Lardner s Cyclopaedia was partly written by him and partly by Dr Lardner ; and his interest in more purely astro nomical questions was evidenced by two communications to the Astronomical Society s Memoirs for 1831-33 the one on an observation of Saturn s outer ring, the other on a method of determining longitude by means of lunar eclipses. KATHlAwAR, or KATTYWAE, also SUEASHTEA, a peninsula forming a collection of native states in Guzerat, western India, lying between 20 41 and 23 8 N. lat., and 68 56 and 72 20 E. long. It is bounded on the N. by the Runn or Gulf of Cutch, on the E. by Ahmedabad district and the Gulf of Cambay, and on the S. and W. by the Arabian Sea ; the extreme length is 220 miles, the greatest breadth about 165 miles, the area about 22,000 square miles, and the estimated population 2,500,000.