Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/880

* UBAGA. 752 dry docks. The views in the vicinity are beauti- ful. Commodore Perry's fleet dropped anchor here on July 8, 1853, and at Kurihama, near by, on July 14th, he met the representatives of the Shogun and delivered President Fillmore's let- ter. This was the first of the series of events which resulted in the opening again of Japan to foreign intercourse. In 1900 a plot of land was purchased at Kurihama and named Perry's Park, and a monument in his honor was unveiled July 14, 1901. Population, in 1895, 12,719. TJ'RAL, u'ral or oo'ral, Euss. pron. u-riil'y'. A river of Eastern Russia, partly on the boundary between Europe and Asia. It rises in the south- ern Ural Mountains in the Government of Oren- burg, and flows first south through one of the eastern longitudinalvalleys, then westward around the southern spurs of the mountain system, and finally southward, emptying into the northern extremity of the Caspian Sea after a course of about 1400 miles (Map: Russia, H 4). The rainfall over its basin is but slight, so that the river receives no important tributaries and is unnavigable. The chief towns on its banks are Orsk, Orenburg, Uralsk, and Guriev, the last- named at its mouth. U'RAL-ALTA'IC. The term commonly em- ployed by anthropologists to designate a branch of the yellow or Asian race, which includes the following groups : Tungusic (Tunguses, Manchus, etc.), Mongolie (Mongols, Kalmucks, etc.), Ta- taric (Turks, 'Tatars,' part of the Cossacks, Kirghizes, etc.), Finnic (Samoyeds, Finns, Lapps, Magj-ars, etc.), Arctic (Tchuktchis, Koriaks, Kanichatkans, Giliaks, Ainus),.and Japanese- Korean. Tlie civilized and more or less Aryan- ized Finns and Mag'ars of Europe, the lat- ter intruding Osmanli Turks of Asia Minor, Southwestern Europe, and Northern Africa, the civilized Turko-Tatar States, ancient and mod- ern, of Turkestan and adjacent parts of Central Asia, the Mongol conquerors of China and India, the Asiatic elements of Korean-Japanese culture, etc., represent the capacities, independent and stimulated by contact with other races and peo- ples, of the Ural-.ltaic tribes. In matters of language these peoples possess generally what are called 'agglutinative' tongues, in contrast with the inflecting Aryan and the mono.syllabic Chinese and Indo-Chinese forms of speech. But the Finnish language in Europe has been thought by some either to have Aryan traits or to have given birth to Aryan tongues. Some authorities have included the Korean-Jap- anese with the Sinitic branch, seeing closer rela- tionship between them and the Chinese than the facts warrant. While the location of the earliest home of the Ural-Altaic peoples is still indeter- minable with exactness — it was somewhere be- tween the Ural and the Altai — certain centres of dispersion of its subdivisions can be noted: Mon- golia, south of the Altai, Turkestan north of the Pamir, the Uralian country, the Baikal region, the Amur Valley, etc. The careful inves- tigations of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition in Northeastern Asia are thought to have shown the existence of long-continued intercommunica- tion and intermigration between America and Asia in the region bounded by the Amur on the one side and the Columbia on the other. It must be said, however, that the facts point as TJBAi MOUNTAINS. much to transference of peoples and culture from America to Asia as vice versa ; indeed, rather more in the former direction. Tliis would be in line with the fact that the presence of the Es- kimo (q.v. ) in the northeastern corner of Asia now is the only convincing proof we have of the transit of any people from one continent to the other. The variety of the response of the Ural- Altaic peoples to foreign culture is seen in their religions. The uncivilized tribes are mostly devo- tees of Shamanism, as of old, but the Mongols, Manchus, Buriats, Kirghiz-Kalmuck Tatars, and to some extent Koreans and Japanese are Budd- hist, the Bashkirs, Turks, etc., are Mohammedans, the greater part of the Kanichatkans. Tchuvashes, part of the Yakuts and of some other Siberian tribes, are Christians of the Russian (Greek) Church, the Magyars are about three-fifths Cath- olic and two-fifths Protestant, and the Finns for the most part Lutheran. Consult : Gastrin, Ethno- logische Vorlestingen iibe)- die altaischen Volker (Saint Petersburg, 1857) ; Schott, Altaisclw S(m- dien (Berlin, 1860-72) ; Jlistelli, Der altaische fijn-achtuptis (Basel, 1883); Winkler, Vralal- taische Volker unci Sprache (Berlin, 1884) ; id.. Das Uralaltaische und seine Gruppm (ib., 1885) ; Grunzel, Entwurf einer vergleiehenden Gramma- tik der altaischen Sprachen (Leipzig, 1895). TJKALITE. A variety of amphibole derived from pyroxene. Its crystals, when di.stinet, show the form of the original mineral, but have the cleavage of amphibole. The crystals vary in color from pale to deep green, and are found at various localities, as in the Ural Mountains and at Canaan, Conn. tTRAL (ii'rnl or oo'rol) MOUNTAINS. A mountain range in Russia, forming part of the conventional boundary between Europe and Asia. It extends in a general north and south direction along the 60th meridian of east longi- tude from the 65th degree of latitude (from which northward to the Kara Sea the course is northeast) south to the north liank of the Ural River (Map: Russia, K 3). A northern extension reappears beyond the Yugar and Kara Straits to form the main range of the islands of Vaigatch and Nova Zembia, while a .southern extension, known as the Mugodzhar Mountains, runs south of the Ural River nearly to the shores of the Sea of Aral. The distance in a straight line between the south- ern and northernmost extremities of the range ia 2000 miles, but the actual length of the some- what sinuous main ridge is still greater. The Ural Mountains do not form a single range, but constitute rather a broad plateau 45 miles wide in the north and nearly 200 miles wide in the south. This plateau is broken up partly into a number of separate ridges or chains running in various directions, partly into broad dome-shaped masses, though the southern portion divides itself into several parallel north an<l south branches. The eastern slope is generally the more abrupt, the western falling in broad, flat terraces toward the lowlands. The average elevation of the main crests is not great, scarcely more than 1500 feet. Mount Tel-pos is 5433 feet above the sea. The climate is rather severe, with very cold winters and hot summers. The rainfall is greater on the western slope and in the centra! and north- ern portion than in the east and south. The range is a watershed of the Obi in the east, the