Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/663

 POLA POLAND 643 POLA, a fortified seaport of Austria, near the S. extremity of Istria, at the head of a harbor of the same name (Porto di Pola), 54 in. S. of Trieste; pop. in 1869, 10,473, and of the commune formed by it and its suburbs, 16,324. Its bay is one of the most beautiful of the smaller inlets of the Adriatic, and has great | advantages as a harbor, which led to its selec- tion in 1850 as a naval station and as the site of an arsenal, dry dock, &c. The town is built on high ground near the water, and is sur- rounded by a bastioned wall built by the Vene- tians in the 15th century. With the exception of the cathedral, dating from the 9th century, there are few noteworthy buildings ; but there are many remarkably well preserved and beau- tiful remains of the flourishing colony estab- lished here by Augustus, under the name of Pietas Julia. The principal of these are the amphitheatre (restored by the emperor Fran- cis in 1816), the porta aurea, a fine triumphal arch, and temples of Augustus and Diana. POLAND (Pol. Pohka), Kingdom of, the name of that part of ancient Poland which in 1815 was reconstituted and placed under the sov- ereignty of Kussia. It forms the westernmost portion of the Russian empire, and is situated between lat. 50 4' and 55 6' N., and Ion. 17 38' and 24 15' E. ; area, 49,158 sq. m. ; pop. in 1872, 6,225,618. After the unsuccessful in- surrection of 1863 Poland lost its indepen- dent administration and all its peculiar institu- tions, and in 1874 its incorporation with Rus- sia was fully completed. It is bounded N. E. and E. by the Russian provinces of Lithua- nia (the governments of Kovno, Wilna, and Grodno) and Volhynia, S. by Austrian Galicia, And W. and N. W. by the Prussian provinces of Silesia, Posen, and West and East Prussia. All these surrounding provinces, as well as numerous others, were formerly parts of in- dependent Poland, of which the nominal king- dom, or the Vistula country as the Russians call it, is thus but a fragment. This country consists of a quadrangular territory, from the N. E. corner of which a long and narrow tract, bounded by Lithuania and East Prussia, stretches northward. The average length as well as breadth of the quadrangle is about "200 m. By far the greater part of the country is a plain, sinking gently toward the Baltic; only the southern regions are hilly or slightly mountainous, being traversed by the northern- most offshoots of the Carpathians. The Vis- tula, which flows from that range to the Baltic, enters Poland a little below Cracow, running N. E. along the southern or Galician frontier AS far as the mouth of the San, sweeps in a northerly and then northwesterly direction through the middle of the kingdom, and leaves it a little above the Prussian fortress of Thorn. On the right it receives the Wieprz, which rises in the S. E. corner of the country, and the Bug, which rises in Galicia and flows along the E. frontier ; on the left the Nida, the Pi- Jica, which rises in the S. W. corner, and the Bzura. The Narew, which rises in Grodno, is a N. affluent of the Bug, which it joins near its mouth. The Niemen, which has its source in Minsk, having traversed Lithuania, reaches Poland near the town of Grodno, and flows along the Lithuanian frontier toward the Baltic. The Warta, the source of which is near that of the Pilica, and its affluent the Prosna, which partly separates Poland from Silesia and Posen, are tributaries of the Oder. Most of these rivers are navigable, and form channels for the exportation of produce through the Prussian towns of Dantzic, Stettin, and Tilsit, to the Baltic. There are lakes in the northern part near the Prussian boundary, but none of large size. The climate is healthy but severe, the summer being very hot and the winter very long and exceedingly cold. In the former season, especially when the S. E. winds blow from the steppes of Russia, the thermometer sometimes rises above 90 F., and in the latter it descends to 15 below zero. The rivers are sometimes ice-bound and the fields covered with snow for four or five months continuously. The soil is mostly a fertile sandy loam ; but there are numerous unproductive tracts covered with sand, heath, or swamps. Rich pastures and vast forests abound. The region between the upper Bug and the Vistula is the most fer- tile, that between the Vistula and the Pilica the most varied and picturesque. The principal products are wheat, rye, barley, oats, buck- wheat, and flax; various leguminous plants; apples, excellent cherries, and other fruit. The forest trees include the pine, fir, birch, oak, ash, hazel, and lime ; the chief minerals are silver, iron, copper, lead, and zinc. Bees, poultry, sheep, and horses are extensively reared. Of wild animals the most common are the deer, fox, marten, polecat, weasel, and wolf. Among the singing birds are the skylark and the night- ingale. The principal fish is the pike. The bulk of the population consists of Poles (about 4,000,000). The Jews number upward of 800,000, the Ruthenians and Russians about 700,000, and the Lithuanians and Germans about 300,000 each. The Roman Catholic church, to which nearly all the Poles and many Ruthenians, Lithuanians, and Germans belong, had in 1867 one archbishop, seven bishops, and a population of 4,326,473. The convents, which were formerly very numerous, have been mostly suppressed. The number of Protes- tants was reported as 331,233, most of whom are German Lutherans. The United Greek church had then a bishop at Chelm and a popu- lation of 229,250, all Ruthenians. The Ortho- dox Greek church numbered only 29,932, with an archbishop at Warsaw. In the spring of 1875, however, the bulk of the United Greek population declared its return to the Ortho- dox church. There were 4,552 Raskolniks, 606 Mohammedans, and 472 pagans. The main resources of the country are agriculture and mining. Commerce and the trades are to a great extent in the hands of the Jews,