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 URN phosphate of magnesia, require an acid fluid for their solution ; consequently they are read- ily held in solution in the urine so long as it maintains its natural acid reaction. But if it be rendered alkaline by the addition or forma- tion of an alkaline ingredient, it at once be- comes turbid by the deposit of the earthy phos- phates. These deposits may be easily recog- nized by their being redissolved on the addition of a small quantity of any mineral or vegetable acid. The chlorides and sulphates of the urine are all readily soluble, and seldom or never appear as a deposit. After being discharged from the bladder, the urine, if kept exposed to the atmosphere at a moderately warm temper- ature, undergoes decomposition. The minute quantity of animal matter existing in the mu- cus becomes a ferment, and causes the urea to be gradually transformed into carbonate of ammonia. This first neutralizes the acid reac- tion of the urine and causes it to become turbid from a deposit of its earthy phosphates. Sub- sequently, as the products of decomposition increase in quantity, the urine becomes strong- ly alkaline and saturated with the ammoniacal salt, which forms a new crystalline combina- tion, namely, the phosphate of magnesia and ammonia, or the so-called "triple phosphate," and finally exhales from its surface a strong ammoniacal vapor. This goes on until all the urea originally existing in the urine has been thus decomposed and returned to the atmos- phere or the soil under the form of an ammo- niacal combination. URN. See BURIAL. URQUHART, David, a British author, born at Bracklanwell, county of Cromarty, Scotland, in 1805. He was educated at Oxford, travelled in the East, and in 1835 was appointed secretary of legation at Constantinople. He resigned this office in 1836, returned to England, and charged the Palmerston ministry with Russian tenden- cies and betrayal of British interests, renewing his attacks from Paris in 1840. He was elected to parliament for Stafford in 1847, but failed of reelection in 1852. He has published " Obser- vations on European Turkey " (1831) ; "Tur- key and its Resources " (1833) ; " Spirit of the East" (1838); "Exposition of the Affairs of Central Asia" (1840); "Exposition of the Boundary Differences between Great Britain and the United States" (1840) ; La crise, ou la France devant les quatre puissances (Paris, 1840) ; "Annexation of Texas a Cause of War between England and the United States" (1844); "The Pillars of Hercules, a Narra- tive of Travels in Spain and Morocco" (2 vols., 1850); "Progress of Russia" (1853); "Recent Events in the East" (1854); and "The Lebanon" (2 vols., 1860). I HQIIZA, Justo Jose de. See ARGENTINE RE- PUBLIC, vol. L, pp. 694-'6. URSA MAJOR, and Ursa Minor. See BEAK, GREAT AND LESSER. URSULA, a saint of the Roman Catholic church, and, according to the legend, a daughter of a URSULINES 225 Christian prince of Britain. The date of her martyrdom is variously given as 237, 383, or 451. She was demanded in marriage by a pagan prince, and fearing by a refusal to bring ruin upon her parents and country, she seem- ingly consented, but obtained a delay of three years, and a grant of 11 triremes and 10 noble companions, each as well as herself attended by 1,000 virgins. She passed the three years with her virgins in nautical exercises; and when the day fixed for her marriage arrived, a sudden wind arose at their prayer, and wafted them to the mouth of the Rhine, and thence to Basel. Here they left their vessels, and made on foot a pilgrimage to Rome. On their return they fell in unexpectedly at Cologne with an army of Huns, by whom they were massacred, Ursula having refused an offer of marriage from the prince. Their corpses were buried by the people of Cologne, and a church was afterward erected in their honor, in which an immense collection of bones is still exhib- ited as those of Ursula and her companions. The first traces of this legend, which was grad- ually enlarged, are met with in the 9th century. URSULINES, a monastic order in the Roman Catholic church, founded at Brescia in 1533 by Angela Merici (born at Desenzano in 1474, died March 21, 1540, canonized May 24, 1807). It was at first a voluntary association of widows and young girls, who undertook the gratuitous education of children of their own sex, devo- ting their spare hours to visiting the sick and relieving the poor. The members were al- lowed to live at home, submitting only to such regulations as the nature of their work and other circumstances required. As their num- bers increased they formed distinct congrega- tions. In 1541 they assumed for their com- mon dress that worn in the country by widows of the middle class. In 1544 their mode of life was approved by Pope Paul III., and, their establishments becoming numerous in northern Italy, they began to live together in common and to elect local superiors, but without bind- ing themselves even by temporary vows. In 1572 T at the instance of St. Charles Borromeo, Pope Gregory XIII. erected the congregation of St. Ursula into a religious order, under the rule of St. Augustine, the members adding to the three ordinary monastic vows a fourth binding them to instruct young girls gratui- tously. Several of the local congregations declined to be members of the new order, and with the consent of the church retained their first organization unchanged. Thus, after 1572, the Ursulines were divided into the new or "regular" Ursulines and the "primitive" Ursulines. The first colony established in France was made by Francoise de Bermond at Avignon in 1594, with the special approbation of Pope Clement VIII. In 1608 two members of this establishment went to Paris at the re- quest of Madeleine Lhuillier de Sainte-Beuve, and opened a central house there, which was approved in 1612 by Paul V. Other branches