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 VINTON pop. in 1870, 15,027. The surface is undu- lating and the soil very fertile. Bituminous coal and iron ore abound. The county is in- tersected by the Marietta and Cincinnati rail- road. The chief productions in 1870 were 44,292 bushels of wheat, 342,211 of Indian corn, 59,824 of oats, 41,052 of potatoes, 245,- 714 Ibs. of butter, 104,934 of wool, 110,739 of tobacco, and 12,341 tons of hay. There were 3,205 horses, 3,066 milch cows, 6,741 other cattle, 29,405 sheep, and 6,781 swine; 1 manu- factory of charcoal, 1 of pig lead, 4 tanneries, 4 currying establishments, 6 flour mills, and 4 saw mills. Capital, McArthur. YIMO.V I. Alexander Hamilton, an American clergyman, born in Providence, E. I., May 2, 1807. He graduated at Brown university, stud- ied medicine at Yale college, and received the degree of M. D. in 1828. After practising three years, he entered the general theological sem- inary of the Protestant Episcopal church, and was ordained in New York in 1835. He took charge of St. Paul's church, Portland, from No- vember, 1835, till April, 1836, and was then for six years rector of Grace church, Providence. From 1842 to 1858 he was rector of St. Paul's church, Boston; from 1858 to 1861 of thechurch of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia ; from 1861 to 1870 of St. Mark's church, New York, when he became rector of Emanuel church, Boston. Dr. Vinton has published a volume of ser- mons (1855) and discourses and addresses. II. Francis, an American clergyman, brother of the preceding, born in Providence, K. I., Aug. 29, 1809, died in Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 29, 1872. He graduated at West Point in 1830, and was appointed second lieutenant in the third artillery. While stationed at Fort Inde- pendence, Boston harbor, he studied at the Harvard law school, and also for two or three years served as civil engineer on several rail- roads in New England. He was admitted to the bar at Portsmouth, N. H., in 1834; was on duty in the Creek war in Georgia and Ala- bama in 1836 ; left the army Aug. 31, 1836, entered the general theological seminary of the Episcopal church, New York, and was or- dained deacon in 1838, and priest in 1839. He was successively rector of St. Stephen's church, Providence (1840), Trinity church, Newport (1840), Emanuel church, Brooklyn (1844), and Grace church in the same city (1847). He was elected an assistant minister of Trinity church, New York, in 1855. In 1869 he was made professor of ecclesiastical law and polity in the general theological sem- inary, New York. He published " Arthur Tre- maine, or Cadet Life" (1830); "Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity" (1865); and "Manual Commentary on the General Canon Law of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States" (1870), a work received as a standard authority. VINTON, Justus Hatch, an American mission- ary, born in Willington, Conn., in 1806, died at Kemendine, Burmah, March 31, 1858. He VIOLET 361 was educated at the Hamilton literary and the- ological institution (now Madison university), and in September, 1832, was appointed a mis- sionary to Burmah by the American Baptist board, but did not sail till July, 1834. He was designated to labor among the Karens, and was first stationed at Chummerah, 90 m. above Maulmain, and afterward at Newville. In 1851 he took charge of the Karen theological seminary at Maulmain, where he remained till March, 1852, when he removed to Kemendine, a suburb of Rangoon, still devoting his labors to the Karens. VIOL. See VIOLIN. VIOLA (Ger. Uratsch, alto ; Eng. tenor viol), an instrument of the violin family, having the appearance of a very large violin. It has four strings, of which two are simple gut and two are wound with wire. These strings, tuned in fifths, are A, D, G, C. It stands an octave above the violoncello, and is chiefly used for the middle part in concerted instrumental music. (See VIOLIN.) VIOLET, the common name for plants of the genus viola (of which it is a diminutive through the It. violetta), an ancient name, adopted by botanists ; the genus is the principal one in the small family violacece (or violariece), which in- cludes herbs and shrubs of no economic impor- tance. Besides ionidium of the far west, and solea of the eastern states (which some now unite with ionidium), viola, is the only repre- sentative of the family in the United States. Violets are found in most temperate regions ; over 200 species are enumerated, which Ben- tham and Hooker think may be reduced to half that number. Our native species are near- ly all perennials, with a short, thick rootstock; some have leafy and often branching stems, while in others the leaves and naked flower stalks are radical, or spring directly from the rootstock ; the five sepals have ear-like projec- tions at the base ; the petals, of the same num- ber, are somewhat unequal, with the lower larger than the others, and prolonged into a spur at the base ; the five stamens have short and broad filaments, and often slightly cohere with one another to form a ring close around the ovary, the two lower ones having short spurs which project into the spur of the lower petal ; the one-celled ovary has a single vari- ously shaped style, with the stigma at one side, and when ripe breaks into three valves, the edges of which fold together and expel the seeds. Many species produce, besides their showy flowers, others in which the petals do not develop ; these are hidden among the leaves at the base of the plant, and produce seeds more abundantly than the showy flowers. About 18 species are accredited to the terri- tory east of the Mississippi, three or four of which are also found in Europe, and several are peculiar to the far west. A convenient subdivision of the species is into stemless and leafy-stemmed violets, these divisions being again subdivided by the color of the flowers,