Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/792

 772 KATIF KATYDID to England and devoted himself to scientific pursuits. He became a captain, and retired on half pay in 1814. Among his most important discoveries were the determination of the pre- cise length of the seconds pendulum, the in- vestigation of the diminution of terrestrial gravity from the pole to the equator, and his employment of the pendulum for the purpose of finding the minute variations of the force of gravity in different parts of a country whose substrata consist of materials having different degrees of density. In the " Philo- sophical Transactions" of 1826 '8 appeared de- scriptions of his " floating collimator," an in- strument of great importance to trigonometers, employed to determine the position of the line of collimation in the telescope attached to an astronomical circle. He also made some inge- nious experiments on the relative merits of the Oassegrain and Gregory telescopes. He is the author of the greater portion of the " Treatise on Mechanics " in Dr. Lardner's " Cabinet Cy- clopaedia," and published "An Account of the Construction and Verification of certain Stand- ards of Linear Measure for the Russian Gov- ernment" (4to, London, 1832). KATIF, a seaport town of Arabia, in a province of the same name in the sultanate of Nedjed, on the Persian gulf, lat. 26 25' N., Ion. 50 10' E. ; pop. about 6,000. The town stands at the W. extremity of a bay formed by two long promontories, at the extremity of each of which is a fortress. Between these points, where the bay is 20 m. wide, lies the island of Tarut, which is well watered and covered with date palms. The castle of Katif stands on the curve of a little inner bay. The town is crowded, damp, dirty, and un- healthy. It has a weekly market, well sup- plied. Katif has now but little trade, the isl- and of Bahrein, about 30 m. S. E. of it, having absorbed most of the commerce of the coast. KATKOFF, Mikhail Nikiforovltrli, a Russian publicist, born in Moscow in 1820. He stud- ied in Moscow, Konigsberg, and Berlin, and was for a short time professor of philosophy, and subsequently became the most influential journalist in Russia, especially since 1861 in connection with the MoskovMya Viedomosti (" Moscow Gazette "). His wife is a member of a princely family. KATMANDU, or Catmandoo, a town of India, capital of Nepaul, 150 m. N. of Patna; pop. estimated at from 20,000 to 50,000. It is situated in a large plain, and surrounded by ranges of the Himalaya mountains. It is the residence of the rajah, and is a place of con- siderable importance, with many temples and good houses, and a fine square containing a royal palace and Chinese pagoda. A consider- able trade is carried on with Thibet and the Ganges. The inhabitants are mostly Newars, and in the vicinity reside the Parbutiyas in straggling villages. KATRINE, Loeh, a lake of Perthshire, Scot- land, 9 m. from Callander. It is of serpentine form, about 10 m. in length, and in some places nearly 2 m. in breadth, and is surrounded with lofty mountains and rocky ravines, displaying scenery of much grandeur and beauty. From its E. extremity flows a stream, which, after pass- ing through the rugged defile of the Trosachs, widens into the two minor lakes of Achray and Vennachar, and becomes the river Teith, a tributary of the Forth. This lake was for- merly a favorite resort of robbers, or cateraru, and at a little distance from its shore is a small island called Eilan Varnoch, whither the freebooters used to bring their plunder, and which is the famous " Ellen's isle " of Scott's " Lady of the Lake." From this lake the city of Glasgow is supplied with water, which is carried 26 m. in pipes over a rugged and moun- tainous district, with 70 tunnels aggregating 13 m. in length,. several aqueduct bridges in the form of iron troughs, and siphon pipes across wide and deep valleys. The works were com- pleted in 1859, at a cost of 1,500,000, and can supply 50,000,000 gallons daily. KATYDID (cyrtophyllus concav-us, Scudd.), an American grasshopper, named from the sound of its note. It is about an inch and a half long, the body being an inch, pale green, with darker wings and wing covers ; the thorax is roughened, and is shaped somewhat like a sad- dle ; the wing covers are longer than the wings, and enclose the body in their concavity, meeting above and below like the valves of a pea pod. This " testy little dogmatist," ren- dered familiar by the verses of Holmes, is one of the loudest and most persevering of our native musicians ; silent and concealed among the leaves during the day, at night it mounts to the highest branches of the trees, where the male commences his sonorous call to the noise- less females. The sound is produced by the friction of the taborets in the triangular over- lapping portion of each wing cover against Katydid (Cyrtophyllus concavus). each other, and is strengthened by the escape of air from the sacs of the body, reverberating so loudly as to be heard a quarter of a mile in a still night. These insects are now conv paratively rare in the Atlantic states, but in some parts of the west their incessant noise