Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/888

* TJBFE. 760 URIC ACID. mayor's Diana, 1542; Gil Polo's Diana En- amorada, 15G4, and Cervantos's (lalatea. 1581). All these roiiiaiiees were popular in France, but UrfC's AsM'e was the first that became a sort of social breviary for a generation. It is a novel of 5155 pages. Its first two volumes appeared in 1010. the tliird in 1GU1, the posthumous fourth and fifth in 1627, with other unofficial continua- tions. Of this interminable treatise on the verb aimer, Urf^ borrows his pastoral scenes from the Diana, his warlike episodes from Atnadis. and from the Greeks and Latins some episodes and much of his storytelling art; but he is superior to them all in character-drawing, in good humor, and in the higher social aim of his work. In the subtle diflferentiation of his lovers, Urfe is a not unworthy forerunner of Racine and Marivaux, unapproached by any novelist of his century but Madame de Lafayette. Urfe was a sort of real- istic idealist ; he chose the scene of his own birth, the banks of the Lignon, for the scene of his novel, and his conversations are lively, far beyond the wont of his time. His aim throughout is the refinement of society, and here its influence is hard to overestimate. The Hotel de Ram- bouillet seems to have been organized in its imitation. Asirfe's popularity was astounding. Bishops like Camus, saints like Francis de Sales, joined with realistic novelists like Sorel to sound the praise of this 'exquisite work.' La Fontaine, the scholarly Huet, the sprightly Fontanelle, the cynic La Rochefoucauld, all rejoiced in it. For two generations it was an accepted book of reference on deportment and breeding. In Ger- many, in 1624, a princely and aristocratic coterie, on organizing an Academie des real's amants, assumed the names of the characters of the Astr^e. Consult: Bonafous, Etude sur I'Astree et sur E. d'Vrfi (Paris, 1846) ; Korting. Ocschichte des fran^iisischcn Romans %ml~ten Jahrhunderl, vol. i. (Oppeln. 1S85). URGA, Scir'ga (Chin. K'nliin). The capital of Northern Mongolia, situated on the Tola River and the highway leading from Kiakhta (q.v.) to Peking, 175 miles south of Kiakhta (Map: China, C 2). It consists of the Mongolian town, inhabited mostly by lamas, and of the Chinese town, a few miles distant, where the Chinese and Russian merchants live. In the Mongolian town is situated the residence of the head of the Lamaist Church in Mongolia. There are also numerous temples surrounded by the houses of the lamas. In the Temple of Maidary is a colossal gilt statue of that divinity, over 33 feet high. During the religious festivals the town is visited by great numbers of pilgrims. Popula- tion, 30,000, including about 10,000 lamas. URI, Wre. A canton of Switzerland, bounded by the Canton of Sclnvyz on the north, Glarus and Grisons on the east. Ticino on the south, and Valais and Unterwalden on the west (Map: Switzerland, C 2). Area, 415 square miles. The region consists of the narrow valley of the Reuss, surrounded by offshoots of the Bernese Alps on the west, the Glarus Alps on the east, and the Saint Gotthard group on the south. Many of the peaks exceed 10,000 feet. The climate is raw. LTri is primarily a pastoral canton, and exports chiefly dairy products. The principal manufactures are dynamite and parquet floors. The legislative authority is exercised directly by the people assembled in the Landsgemeinde. The canton is represented by one member in the Federal Council. Population, in 1900, 19,732, nearly all German-speaking Roman Catholics. Capital. Altdorf (q.v.). LTri, first mentioned in 732, passed in the thir- teenth century to the Hapsburgs. It gradually obtained its independence and in 1291 formed the ■perpetual league' with Schwyz and Unterwal- den. In the fifteenth century the Val Leventina (now a part of Ticino) was acquired by Uri. The canton took part in the Sonderbund (q.v.). URI. Another name for the Limpopo (q.v.), a river of South Africa. U'RIAN, Ger. pron. oo're-an, Sir. A name, like the modern 'Mr. Blank,' once used to desig- nate one whose real name was either unknown or unmentionable. It occasionally occurs in Ger- man and English literature before the nineteenth century-, and is sometimes used of Satan. In Wolfram von Eschenbach's Par^ival it is applied to the evil-minded Prince of Punturtois. URIC ACID ( from Gk. oipop, otiroii, urine), C;,H,N,0,,. A compound of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, which forms a loose white powder or scales consisting of minute crystals de- void of smell or taste, only very slightly soluble in water ( 1 part requiring about 15,000 parts of cold and 1600 of boiling water), and quite in- soluble in alcohol and ether. It is soluble with- out decomposition in strong sulphuric acid, and it may be thrown down from this solution by the addition of water. It is also soluble in the carbonates, borates, phosphates, lactates, and acetates of the alkalies., extracting from these salts a part of their base, with which it forms acid urates. Litmus paper is reddened ,by its moist crystals, or by a hot aqueous solution. The acid is not volatile, and by dry distillation is decomposed into carbonate of ammonia, urea, cyanuric acid, hydrocyanic acid, etc. L^ric acid acts as a very weak dibasic acid, forming with bases two series of salts, the neutral and the acid, of which the former are the more soluble. Among the most important are the acid urates of sodium, potassium, lithium, and ammonium. The urate of lithium is more soluble than any other urate, and hence lithia water is an important therapeutic agent in converting uric acid and the more insoluble urates into a soluble salt in the living body. The urates are frequently called 'lithates.' and the acid itself 'lithic acid.' Uric acid is widely distributed throughout the animal organism. It occurs not only in the urine of man and carnivorous animals, but is the chief constituent (either free or in comliination) of many calculi occurring in the kidneys or bladder, and of numerous urinary sediments. The urinary secretion of birds and reptiles consists almost entirely of urates, which are also found in the excrements of caterpillars, butterflies, beetles, etc.. and of many mollusks. Moreover, in very minute quantitjes, it occurs as a urate in healthy blood, in which fluid it has been found in excess in gout and Bright's disease, and is a constituent of the aqueous extract of the spleen, liver, lungs, pancreas, and brain. The chalk-stonrn occurring about the smaller joints and in the lobes of the ear of gouty patients consist mainly of urate of soda.