Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/834

Rh 774 O N K N T iii. 738), and beyond the wadi, at 11 miles distance, is the other great township of Middle Nejd, Boreida, less than Oneiza, with a population probably of 5000. The people of these and the neighbouring towns, as Al- Russ, 1 are in great part caravaners and merchants ; they are the Lombards of Arabia, and are called in the Mecca country &quot; the easterlings,&quot; and in the Syrian and Mesopo- tamian border- lands the Azeil. These world- wandering men are commonly of easy, liberal mind in doctrines of religion, whilst the large half of their home- dwelling fellow-citizens are sour Wahhabites. In these upper parts of the peninsula we see yet some remains of the ancient Arabian civilization. Here is found the art, elsewhere lost, of stone-cutting and well-building ; and at Oneiza are gold smiths whose work is among the best seen in the bazaars of Mecca. Oneiza has an appearance of commercial pros perity, but the poor farmers are much indebted ^o the money-lenders. The townsmen are among the greatest coffee -drinkers in Arabia. The horse-dealers of Oneiza procure young horses from the nomads round the town, even as far as Yemen, and ship these (known in India as &quot; Oneiza horses &quot;) at Koweyt for Bombay. When Ibrahim Pasha marched to Nejd against the Wahhabite power this town was held by a resident for Ibn Sa ud. Ibrahim shelled the clay fortress, but allowed the governor to depart with arms and baggage. After the building of Al-Riad Oneiza fell again to the Wahhabites. Jellowwy, a brother of the Wahhabite prince Feysel ibn Sa ud, was resident, but, bearing himself oppressively, he was expelled, as had been determined in a secret council of the sheikhs. This brought Ibn Sa ud with all Nejd under arms, and the Shammar prince Ibn Rashid, to recover the rebellious town. He encamped upon the borders of the Wadi al-Romma, and lay there till the second year (1853-54), but attempted nothing (since Arabs cannot be commanded or led to storm a clay town-wall even if, as in this case, it is no more than 18 inches thick), and then departed, making peace with the townsmen upon their own terms. A second war followed after eight years. Abdullah al-Azi z al- Mohammed, the natural prince of Boreida, worsted by the Wah- habite faction, fled to Oneiza ; and a little later, when he was going to take refuge with the sherif of Mecca, the Wahhabites lay in wait for him in the desert and killed him. Word being carried to Oneiza, the townsmen sent out armed men, who overtook and fought with them because they had killed the guest of Oneiza, thus drawing a new conflict on the town. Mohammed, another brother of the prince Ibn Sa ud, came against Oneiza, and all subject Arabia in arms with him ; and to meet this multitude Oneiza had little more than 1000 men. The Wahhabites had cannon, but could not handle them ; the Oneizians, in their walled township^followed their daily labours at leisure. The citizens made one sally in force, but after heavy fighting were driven back with a loss of 200 men. There were two slighter skirmishes in long months of warfare. At length the besiegers, impatient of the time vainly spent, drew homeward, and Ibn Sa ud returned to Al-Riad. ONKELOS. See TARGUM. ONOMACRITUS was a seer, priest, and poet of Attica about 530-480 B.C. His importance lies in his connexion with the religious movements in Attica during the 6th century. He had great influence on the development of the Orphic religion and mysteries; and the works of MUSSHIS, the legendary founder of Orphism in Attica, are said to have been reduced to order by him (see ORPHEUS). He was in high favour at the court of the Pisistratidae till he was detected by Lasus of Hermione making an inter polation in an oracle of Musseus, and was banished by Hip- parchus. When the Pisistratidaa were themselves expelled and were living in Persia, Onomacritus is said to have fur nished them with oracles encouraging Xerxes to invade Greece and restore the tyrants in Athens. He is also said to have interpolated Homer, and has in modern times been considered by some critics to have remodelled the Homeric poems. Plate ONTARIO is the name given under the confederation XXIII. of the provinces of British North America to what was previously known as Upper Canada (see CANADA). The 1 Xear Al-Russ is Al-Ethella, the s;te, probably, of Jarada, the ancient metropolis of Kasim. river Ottawa, through a considerable part of its course, forms the eastern boundary separating it from the province of Quebec. Its southern and south-western boundaries are the Lakes Ontario, Erie, St Clair, Huron, and Superior, with the St Lawrence, Niagara, St Clair, Detroit, and St Mary rivers. The northern and western boundaries, which had remained without precise determination so long as the region beyond was the hunting-ground of the Hudson s Bay Company, were denned in 1878 by arbitrators named by the Dominion and provincial Governments. By this award the boundary line is traced from a point deter mined by a line produced due north from the head of Lake Temiscaming to James Bay, along the south shore of Hudson s Bay westerly to the mouth of the Albany river, and so by the river and lakes to the head of Lake Joseph, and by Lac Seul and the English river to a point of intersection with the meridian line drawn from the north-western angle of the Lake of the Woods on the United States boundary. The legislature of Ontario ac cepted this award as determining the limits, and defining the boundary line between the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, but the Dominion Government withheld its assent, and the final decision is now referred to the privy council. The area of the province within the limits thus defined would be 197,000 square miles. Its area as given in the census returns of 1881 is 101,733 square miles. Geology and Minerals. The shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario belong to the great plain of Canada, underlaid by Silurian and Devonian limestone and shales, above which rest beds of clay and gravel. Its average breadth is about 70 miles, and, though technically a plain, it is not merely undulating, but is broken by shelving rocks and precipices. To the north of the province a spur from the Laurentian chain in Quebec forms an extensive hilly region, and runs southwards to the coasts of Lake Huron and the Georgian Bay. Within the province there is a great variety of mineral wealth yet only partially developed. Iron, of which, according to the census returns, the annual yield is about 92,000 tons, is found in large quantities to the north of Lake Ontario, between the Georgian Bay and the Ottawa river. Magnetic iron is obtained in various bedsj red hematite in the Bruce copper-mines near Lake Huron, and bog iron in the sandy tracks which flank the Laurentian hills. Copper is found in the same region as iron, the Bruce mines yielding ore to the annual value of 50,000. Silver abounds on the shores of Lake Superior, especially in the neighbourhood of Thunder Bay, Silver Islet, where the ore is dug 500 feet below Lake Superior, containing one of the richest veins in the world. Gold is obtained in the same region, but the yield is so uncertain as to discourage regular enterprise. There are petroleum wells of immense value in the western districts of the province, the annual yield being nearly 16,000,000 gallons of crude petroleum. Salt brine is drawn up from deep wells at Goderich and the neighbourhood, the annual yield being about 500,000 gallons. Mica is extensively worked. Marble equal to that of Carrara is quarried in several districts. The principal other minerals are galena, plumbago, antimony, arsenic, manganese, calc-spar, and gypsum. Agriculture and Trade. The oldest settled districts of the province on the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and on the intervening peninsula of Niagara, are favoured in many respects by geographical position, soil, and climate. The fertile area stretching westward between Lake Erie and the Georgian Bay is often styled the &quot; Garden of Canada.&quot; The settled portions include upwards of 9,000,000 acres, much of which has been long cleared and brought into a high state of cultivation. Thousands of acres are planted as orchards ; and the apple crop is a