Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/84

 72 K I E K I L KIERKEGAARD, SUREN (1813-1855), the greatest philosophical writer that Scandinavia has produced, was born at Copenhagen, May 5, 1813, and was the seventh child of a respectable Jutland hosier. He was a very serious and precocious boy, weak in health, morbid in character. Of his mother, singularly enough, he has siid no word in his copious autobiographical remains, although he was in his twenty-second year when she died ; she had been his father s servant. Kierkegaard became a student at the university of Copenhagen, and took up theology as a profession, but never became a priest. He lived in great retirement, deeply oppressed with melancholy and physical suffering, and was at first very little known to his contem poraries. In 1838 he published his first volume, Papers of a Still Liviny Man, a very poor attempt te characterize Hans Andersen. Two years later he took his degree, with a treatise On Irony, which contains the germs of his later speculations. In 1840 he engaged himself to a j oung lady, and shortly after broke off the engagement, an extraordinary step for which he has given many extraordinary reasons, it was not until 1842 that he began the composition of his greatest work, Enten Eller (&quot; Either Or &quot;), on which his reputation mainly rests; this appeared in 1843, and was immediately followed by a rapid succession of philosophical works, which formed at once an epoch in the history of Danish literature. From 1849 to 1854, however, he was silent as an author. In the last-mentioned year he pub lished a polemical tract against Bishop Martensen, and the short remainder of his life was spent in a feverish agitation against the theology and practice of the state church. But his health, which had always been miserable, was growing worse and worse. In October 1855 he took up his abode in one of the chief hospitals of Copenhagen, where he died, on the llth of November, at the age of forty-two. His life has been written, with great skill and brilliance, by Dr Georg Brand es (1877). Kierkegaard published about thirty distinct books during his life-time, and left at his death about an equal amount of MS. ; a competent analysis of these multifarious labours is given in Brandes s admirable biography. KILDARE, an inland county of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, is situated between 52 51 and 53 2G N. lat., and between 6 28 and 7 11 W. long., and is bounded on the W. by Queen s county and King s county, N. by Meath, E. by Dublin and Wicklow, and S. by Carlow. The area is 418,497 acres, or 654 square miles. Geology. The greater part of Kildare belongs to the carboniferous plain which occupies the central portion of Ireland. In the east of the county this plain is bounded by elevations belonging to the clay slate formations border ing on the granite mountains of Dublin and Wicklow ; in the south it is encroached upon by the granite formations of Carlow ; and in the centre it is interrupted by an elevated plateau terminated on the south by the hills of Dunnmrry, consisting chiefly of grauwacke and clay slates, and on the north by the Hill of Allen, a conical rock of porphyry and greenstone, which rises abruptly from the Bog of Allen to the height of 300 feet. Marble of very fine quality is obtained in the quarries to the west of the town of Kildare, and copper ore is said to have been found in the hills of Dunmurry. Rivers. The principal rivers are the Boyne, which with its tributary the Blackwater rises in the north part of the county, but soon passes into Meath; the Barrow, which forms the boundary of Kildare with Queen s county, and receives the Greese and the Lane shortly after entering Kildare ; the Lesser Barrow, which flows southward from the Bog of Allen to near Rathangan ; and the Liffey, which enters the county near Ballymore Eustace, and flowing north-west and then north-east quits it at Leixlip, having received the Morrel between Celbridge and Clane, and the Eyewater at Leixlip. The northern border of the county is traversed by the lloyal Canal, which connects Dublin with the Shannon at Cloondara. Further south the Grand Canal, which connects Dublin with the Shannon at Shannon Harbour, occupies the valley of the Liffey until at Sallins it enters the Bog of Allen, passing into King s county near the source of the river Boyne. Several branch canals connected with it afford communication with the southern districts of the county. Climate and Agriculture. Owing in a considerable degree to the large extent of bog, the climate of the northern districts is very moist, and fogs are frequent, but the eastern portion is drier, and the climate of the Liftey valley is very mild and salubrious. The soil, whether resting on the limestone or on the clay slate, is principally a rich deep loam inclining occasionally to clay, easily cultivated and very fertile if properly drained, which too often is not the case. About 40,000 acres in the northern part of the county are included in the Bog of Allen, which is, however, intersected in many places by elevated tracts of firm ground. To the south of the town of Kildare is the Curragh, an undulating down of about 8000 acres in extent, and presenting to the eye a beautiful sward of vivid green unbroken by a single tree or shrub. The common is the property of the crown, and is occupied as a sheep walk, while a portion of it forms the principal race-course of Ireland. It is now also the headquarters of a military division. The most fertile and highly cultivated districts of Kildare are the valleys of the Liffey and a tract in the south watered by the Greese. The demesne lands along the valley of the Liffey are finely wooded. More attention is paid to drainage and the use of manures on the larger farms than is done in many other parts of Ireland, but the small farms are mostly cultivated in the usual slovenly manner. The pastures which are not subjected to the plough are generally very rich and fattening. The following table gives a classification of holdings according to sixe in 1850 and 1880, as contained in the agricultural returns : 1 Acre. 1 nnd under 5. 5 nnd under 15. lf&amp;gt; and under i!0. SO and upwards. Total. 1H50 IcSSO 1,295 1,414 2,813 1,764 2.14.-, 1,G82 1.5S9 1,106 3,854 2,1)31 1&amp;lt;&amp;gt;,34&amp;lt;&amp;gt; 8,957 The total area under crop in 1881 was 120,953 acres, or 29 per cent, of the whole acreage of the county. In 1880 239,406 acres, a percentage of 57 &quot;2, were under grass, 360 acres lay fallow, 7332 were woods, 37,540 bog and marsh, 983 barren mountain laud, and 15,404 water, roads, and fences. The area under crop in 1850 was 147,507 acres, the diminution in ] 881 being more than accounted for by a fall of 34,932 in the area under cereals. On the other liand, the area Tinder grass increased between 1850 and 1881 by 47,156 acres. Between 1850 and 1881 the area under wheat, for which the rich deep soil in the valley of the Liffey is well suited, declined from 22,737 to 4120, and that under oats from 45,791 to 23,761, or nearly one-half, while the area under barley was nearly doubled, being 13,883 in 1881. The area under potatoes declined from 12,158 acres in J850 to 9348 acres in 1881, and, notwithstanding a large increase in pasturage and in the number of cattle, the area under turnips only increased from 9622 to 11,501. Horses have increased from 13,521 in 1855 to 13,795 in 1881. The number used for agricultural purposes was 8205. Little atten tion is paid to the breed, and the supply is obtained chiefly outside the limits of the county. Cattle in 1855 numbered 74,480, and in 1881 had increased to 92,252. !Mileh cows numbered only 12,578, and have diminished since 1855 by 3612. There has been great im provement in the breeds of cattle, crosses with the shorthorned or the Durham being now the most common. Sheep numbered 127,614 in 1555, 133,996 in 1880, and 117,760 in 1881. They are grazed chiefly on the Curragh, and are now principally Leicesters or crosses with that breed. Hgshave diminished since 1855 from IS, 993 to 12,936. Goats in 1881 numbered 3835, and poultry 224,310. According to the corrected summary of the return of owners of land in Ireland, 1878, the county in 1873 was divided among 1768 owners, possessing altogether 412, 490 acres, with a rateable valuation of 338,233. Of the owners 848, or 48 per cent., possessed 1 acre and upwards nnd the average rateable valuation nil over was