Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/853

* YELLOWSTONE RIVER. 721 YENISEI. taries of the Yellowstone are the Big Horn and tlie Powder River, hoth from the south. YELLOWTAIL. The name of several marine fishes, specitically one of the amber-fishes (q.v.). (See Plate of Hor.se Maokkhki.. ) A related si)ecies (Elegatis bijiinniiluliix}. one of the runners, is called 'yellowtair in the West Indies. YELLOWTHROAT. See Maryland Yel- LOWTIIKOAT. YELLOW WEED. See Weed. YELLOW WOOD. See Oxleva ; Cladrastis. YEMAS'SEE, The. A colonial romance of South Carolina by William Gilmore Simms (1835). It aroused interest among the reading public, and is generally considered to represent the author's best work. YElVfEN. A region in the southwestern cor- ner of Arabia, extending along the coast of the Red Sea from Hedjaz to the Strait of Bab-el- ISIandeb, and bounded by the desert and Hadra- niaut on the cast and by the Gulf of Aden on the south. It forms part of the Turkish Empire (Map: Turkey in Asia, Q 12). Area, about 75,000 square miles. In its most extended sense the name Y'emen has been used to designate prac- tically all Arabia south of Syria. The southern section of Y'emen, east of the Strait of Bab-el- !Mandeb, is now practically in the British sphere of inlluence, as is also the island of Kamaran nl!' the coast. Yemen, the present territory, is the southern and most favored part of the ancient Ariihia Felix, or 'Happy Arabia.' It is a moun- tainous country, some of the greatest elevations in Ai'abia being in its southern portion. From the coast a series of arid terraces rise to the moun- tains from 30 to 50 miles away. There are many valleys rich in all kinds of tropical and subtropical vegetation. These districts have been terraced with great labor for the purpose of increasing the productive area. The high plateau extending north and soiith along the central region is scarred by black, ugly volcanic formations. The climate of Y'emen is hot on the coast, and is described as ideal in the higher regions, a daily mist rising there and protecting the land from the scorching, vertical rays of the sun. The rainfall is ample except in the north. Coffee is the main crop. Hodeida is now the leading port. Sana and Mocha are other prominent towns. Transportation is effected by camel caravans over the dillicult mountain roads. Yemen has recently lieen divided into four vilayets — Azir, Hodeida. Sana, and Tais. Population estimated at about "50.000. In ancient times the Saba'ans (q.v.) held sway in Y'emen. The country passed under the dominion of the Turks in the sixteenth century. In 1630 the Arabs drove out the Turks, and later the Imam of Sana became a powerful potentate ruling over an extensive domain. In 1S72 the land came under control of the Turks again, but their troubled rule has become scarcely more, than nominal. YEN (.Tap., from Chin, i/tieii, round object). A Japanese coin minted in both gold and silver. The gold yen is worth about $0.997 ; the silver yen about $0.52S. YENIKALE, yen'e-ka-la', Strait of. A nar- row passage connecting the Sea of Azov with the Black Sea and separating the Crimean Peninsula from the western extremity of the Caucasus (Map: Russia, K 5). it is 25 miles long and from 2% to 23 miles wide, an expansion in the middle forming the harbor of Kertch (q.v.). Irregular shoals render the navigation of the strait dillicult. YENISEI, yiin'f-s:Ve. One of the throe great rivers of .Siberia, and one of the four or five long- est rivers in the world. It rises on the southern slo])e of the Sayansky Mountains in the north- Western part of JMongolia, and flows in a general nortli-nortlnvest direction across Siberia and within the Territory of Yeniseisk until it empties into the Arctic Ocean in longitude 80^ E. through the Gulf of Y'nisei (Map: Asia, II 2). The gulf is a large estuary 10 to 100 miles wide and about 250 miles long, separated from the estuary of the Obi by a peninsula 175 miles wide in the south, but only about 10 miles wide in the north, so that the two great rivers may be said to have a common embouchure. The length of the Y'enisei proper, excluding the estuary, is about 2500 miles, but measuring from the source of the Selenga, which (lows into Ijike Baikal and thence through the Angara to the Y'enisei, the length is 3250 miles. Tliis length is about equal to that of the Obi-Irtysh and the Y'ang- tse-kiang, and is exceeded only by that of the Amazon, the Nile, and the Mississippi-Missouri. After breaking through the Sayansky Mountains in a series of falls and rapids, the Y'enisei pursues a sw'ift course for several hundred miles until it receives the Angara, after which it flows through the great Siberian plains with a sluggish course, though its eastern bank is flanked by highlands and moimtain ranges al- most to its mouth. Along its middle course the banks are generally covered with forests of pine, birch, and larch, but the extreme lower portion passes through the Arctic tundras. In its lower reaches the river sometimes has a width of four miles during the floods, and near the estuary it divides into parallel branches inclosing a num- ber of islands, while the upper part of the estuary itself is filled with a large archipelago, which has given it the name of the Liman of the Seventy Islands. The Y'enisei receives three great tributaries from the east, the Angara, or Upper Tunguska, which drains Lake Baikal, the Stony Tiinguska, and the Lower Timguska. Through these and its smaller western tributaries it approaches so closely to its two great neighboring rivers, the Obi and the Lena, that it forms a link in a prac- tically continuous waterway tJirough the whole length of Siberia. A canal was completed in 1891 between the Kas. a trilnitary of the Y'enisei, and the Ket, flowing into the Obi, but, owing to the shallowness of the two connecting streams, it is passable only by small vessels. The main stream of the Y'enisei is navigable to the base of the Sayansky Mountains at Jlinusinsk. 1850 miles above the estuary, and about a dozen steamers ply on it regularly. The river is frozen for only three months in the south, but in the north it is ice-bound the greater part of the year, navigation at the mouth being open scarcely more than six weeks, and being moreover ren-