Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/622

 608 OKTIBBEHA OLBEES The fruit is a narrow, pyramidal, ten-angled pod, 4 to 8 in. long, sharply pointed, and con- taining numerous kidney-shaped seeds. There are dwarf varieties only a little over 2 ft. high with shorter pods. Okra is cultivated for its young pods, which abound in mucilage ; their principal use is to impart a thickening to soups and to form a peculiar southern dish called gumho. (See GUMBO.) They are sometimes simply boiled and dressed like asparagus, and are much esteemed by those accustomed to them. Okra will grow in any good garden soil, and may be sown in place or transplanted from a hotbed, giving the plants plenty of room. The dwarf varieties are best suited to northern gardens. The pods must be gathered when perfectly tender, before any woody fibre has formed in them ; and if any become too old for use they should be removed, that the plants may continue to produce. For winter use the pods are put down in salt, the same as cucumbers, or are sliced and dried. Among the many substitutes that have been proposed for coffee are the seeds of okra. The mallow family generally have tough fibrous inner bark, and that of the okra affords a very handsome fibre ; it has been proposed for paper stock. OKTIBBEHA, a N. E. county of Mississippi, drained by branches of the Tombigbee river ; area, 576 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 14,891, of whom 9,304 were colored. The surface is nearly level, and the soil very productive. The chief productions in 1870 were 5,198 bushels of wheat, 334,463 of Indian corn, 23,627 of sweet potatoes, 6,288 bales of cotton, 48,787 Ibs. of butter, and 1,329 tons of hay. There were 1,237 horses, 1,705 mules and asses, 2,296 milch cows, 3,877 other cattle, 2,105 sheep, and 14,555 swine. Capital, Starkville. OLAF, Saint, king of Norway, killed in bat- tle, July 29, 1030. He was the son of Harald Granske, and grandson of Harald the Fair- Haired, and was educated by Sigurd Syr, the chief of an upland district, who married the young prince's widowed mother. At the age of 12 Olaf commanded a piratical expedition to the British coasts, where he assisted the An- glo-Saxons in opposing the Danes ; and at the age of 16 he had been engaged in nine great battles. In his career as a viking he visited Sweden; and once, being blockaded by the Swedes within the Maalar lake, he escaped by cutting a canal to the sea. For the next two years he infested the shores of France and Spain ; and at length returning to Norway du- ring the absence of Eric (1014), then engaged in the wars of Canute in England, he made himself master of the kingdom to the great joy of the Christians, and soon rendered it in- dependent of both Sweden and Denmark. In his zeal for the Christian faith, he burned the heathen temples, erecting churches on the ruins, and marched through his dominions at the head of an army, compelling submission to the new faith. He forbade all piracy, and en- forced his law so rigorously that, although the vikings were sons of his most powerful sub- jects, he punished the offenders with loss of life or limb. His severity provoked rebellion, and while quelling this he was suddenly at- tacked by Canute the Great, who laid claim to Norway, landed an army at Drontheim, and conquered the kingdom. Olaf tied with his infant son Magnus to Russia; but two years afterward (1030), assisted by the king of Swe- den, he entered Norway from the north, gave battle to the Danes near Drontheim, and fell in the thick of the fight, with most of his fol- lowers and kinsmen. The body of the king was secretly buried by one of his adherents. OLAM), an island in the Baltic, belonging to Sweden, from which it is separated by a nar- row strait called Calmar sound ; area, 519 sq. m. ; pop. about 40,000. It contains several villages, and the town of Borgholm, the capi- tal. The E. shores are high and steep, and the W. low. The interior consists chiefly of bar- ren sand hills, and in the north there are a few small lakes. A great part of the surface is covered with fine forests ; and a strip of land along the coast is cultivated. Cattle and sheep are extensively reared. Oland is famous for its diminutive ponies. OLBERS, Heinrich Wilhelm Mattlfans, a German astronomer, born at Arbergen, near Bremen, Oct. 11, 1758, died in Bremen, March 2, 1840. He was a practising physician, and made his observations from an upper chamber of his dwelling in Bremen, with an ordinary hand telescope. He applied himself especially to the study of comets, and in 1779 discovered a method of calculating their orbits which was greatly superior to those previously in use. He computed the orbits of the comets of 1781, 1795, 1798, 1799, 1802, and of the great one of 1811. He also made investigations respect- ing the existence of the small planets whose orbits lie between Mars and Jupiter. Kepler had suggested that a planetary body might oc- cupy this space ; and with a view of verifying this suggestion, an association of 24 astrono- mers, including Olbers, divided up the zodiac among themselves for independent scrutiny. On Jan. 1, 1801, the small planet Ceres was dis- covered by Piazzi of Palermo, who was not a member of the association ; and on March 28, 1802, Olbers discovered in the northern part of the constellation Virgo the planet Pal- las. This led Olbers to conjecture that they were fragments of a larger planet once ex- isting there, and that probably other portions might be found moving in nearly the same orbit ; but he said he advanced the hypothe- sis merely to serve as a guide in making ob- servations. (See ASTEEOIDS.) He accordingly explored carefully, every month, the two oppo- site regions of the heavens in which the orbits of the new planets intersected, and where he supposed the fragments of the shattered planet must pass. In September, 1804, M. Harding of Bremen accidentally discovered a third planet, Juno. Olbers continued his search with re-