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 WILKIE scenery, which renders it a popular summer resort. It has street railroads, is lighted with gas, and is supplied with water from adjacent streams. The North Branch division of the Pennsylvania canal passes through the city, which communicates with New York, Phila- delphia, and the west by the Lehigh and Sus- quehanna, the Lehigh Valley, and the Lacka- wanna and Bloomsburg (on the opposite bank of the river) railroads. It owes its prosperity to the immense deposits of anthracite in the vicinity. There are manufactories of cars, locomotives, mining engines and machinery, foundery products, carriages, chairs, miners' tools, organs, ale and beer, galvanized iron cornices, wire and hemp rope, pottery, rail- road tools, &c. The city contains four nation- al banks, with an aggregate capital of $1,200,- 000, and three savings banks with $850,000 capital. The principal charitable institutions are the city hospital and the home for friend- less children. There are three graded public schools, a female seminary, a colored school, a high school, several select schools, and one daily and four weekly (two German) news- papers. The Wyoming historical and genea- logical society has a collection of antiquities and geological specimens, and the Wyoming Athenaeum a library of 1,500 volumes. There are 23 churches, viz. : 2 Baptist, 1 Congrega- tional, 4 Episcopal, 1 Jewish, 2 Lutheran, 5 Methodist, 6 Presbyterian, and 2 Eoman Cath- olic. Wilkesbarre is a combination of the names of John Wilkes and Col. Isaac Barre", defenders of colonial rights in the British par- liament. It was founded in 1772, and incor- porated as a borough in 1806. The population of the borough in 1870 was 10,174, but in 1871 it received a city charter, and Wilkes- barre township (pop. 7,090) was annexed. WILKIE, Sir David, a Scottish painter, born at Cults, Fifeshire, Nov. 18, 1785, died at sea, near Gibraltar, June 1, 1841. He was the son of the Eev. David Wilkie, who placed him in 1799 in the trustees' academy in Edinburgh, where he gained a prize for the best picture of " Callisto in the Bath of Diana." In 1805 he removed to London, and in 1806 exhibited his " Village Politicians " at the national academy. He exhibited " The Blind Fiddler " in 1807, "The Card Players " in 1808, and "The Cut Finger " and " Rent Day " in 1809. Pie was elected an associate of the royal academy in 1809, and an academician in 1811. His father died in 1812, and he assumed the support of his mother and sister. From this time till 1825 he painted most of his best pictures. Among these are " Blindman's Buff" (1813), "The Letter of Introduction " and "Duncan Gray " (1814), " Distraining for Eent" (1815), "The Eabbit on the Wall-" (1816), "The Break- fast "(1817), "The Errand Boy" (1818), "The Penny Wedding" (1819), "Reading the Will" (1820), "Guess my Name" and "Newsmon- gers" (1821), "Chelsea Pensioners reading the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo" (1822), WILKINS 625 " The Parish Beadle " (1823), " Smugglers offer- ing Goods for Sale " and " The Cottage Toilet " (1824), and "The Highland Family" (1825). His " Chelsea Pensioners " was executed for the duke of Wellington for 1,200. In 1817 he visited Abbotsford and painted the well known group of "Sir Walter Scott and his Family." Passing three years on the conti- nent, he exhibited in 1829 eight pictures, in- eluding the well known "Maid of Saragossa." His later pictures were not received with as much favor as his earlier ones. Among these are "John Knox preaching in St. Andrews," " Columbus submitting the Chart of his Voy- age to the Spanish Authorities," "Peep-o'-day Boys," " Mary Queen of Scots escaping from Lochleven Castle," "Benvenuto Cellini and Pope Paul III.," and portraits of William IV., Queen Victoria, and the duke of Wellington. Most of his works in his later style are fading, while his early pictures are still unchanged. In 1830 he was made painter in ordinary to the king, and in 1836 he was knighted. He painted a portrait of the sultan in 1840, visited the Holy Land, and died on his voyage home and was buried at sea. His life has been written by Allan Cunningham (3 vols. 8vo, 1843). WILKDf, a W. county of Minnesota, sepa- rated from Dakota by the Bois de Sioux and Red rivers, the latter of which also intersects it; area, about 900 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 295; in 1875, 528. The surface is uneven and ele- vated, and the soil is productive. It is trav- ersed by the St. Paul and Pacific railroad. Capital, Breckenridge. WILKESS, Sir Charles, an English orientalist, born in Frome in 1749, died in London, May 13, 1836. He went to Calcutta in 1770, in 1778 made the type for printing Halhed's Bengalee grammar, and afterward made the matrices for a font of Persian type. He returned to Eng- land in 1786, was appointed librarian of the East India company in 1801, and knighted in 1823. He translated the Bhagamd Gitd (1785) and Hitopadesa (1787), wrote a Sanskrit gram- mar (1808) and "The Eoots of the Sanskrit Language " (1815), and edited Richardson's Arabic and Persian dictionary (1806-'10). WILKINS, John, an English prelate, born in 1614, died in London, Nov. 19, 1672. Resigned the " Solemn League and Covenant," formed with Wallis and others in London a club which was the nucleus of the royal society, in 1648 became warden of Wadham college, Oxford, in 1656 married the widowed sister of Oliver Cromwell, and in 1659 was made master of Trinity college, Cambridge. He was ejected at the restoration, but Charles II. made him rector of St. Lawrence, Jewry, London, in 1662, and bishop of Chester in 1668. His principal works are : " The Discovery of a New World," containing arguments to prove the moon hab- itable (4to, London, 1638); "Discourse con- cerning a New Planet" (1640); "Mercury, or the Secret Messenger," an essay on modes of telegraphing (1641); "Mathematical Magic,