UNTERMEYER 132 is one of the most widely known of Uni- versity Settlements. UNTERMEYER, LOUIS, an Ameri- can author, born in New York, in 1885. He was educated at De Witt Clinton High School, New York, and at the age of 17 entered his father's business of jewelry manufacturing. Although being actively and successively engaged in this business, he became one of the most prom- inent humor poets in the United States. He was a contributing editor to the "Liberator," an occasional lecturer at Yale, Princeton, and other colleges, and a member of the Socialist party. Be- sides contributing many criticisms and reviews to the "New Republic" "Yale Review," New York "Evening Post," etc., he translated a compilation of "Poems of Heinrich Heine" (19 17) ; "Modern Ameri- can Verse" (1919) ; and wrote "The Younger Quire" (1910) ; "First Love" (1911); "Challenge" (1914); and "Other Poets" (1916); "Three Times" (1917) ; "Including Horace" (1919) ; etc. UNTERMYER, SAMUEL, an Ameri- can lawyer, bom at Lynchburg, Va., in 1858. He was educated at the College of the City of New York and at Colum- bia University, was admitted to the bar in 1879, eventually becoming a member of the firm of Gruggenheimer, Untermyer, and Marshall. He organized and was counsel for many industrial and railway corporations and became especially well known for his successful efforts in re- organization, as well as for his success- ful merger of some of the largest copper companies in this country. He also acted as lawyer for many prominent in- dividuals. His service as counsel for the Committee of Banking and Currency of the House of Representatives in the "Pujo Money Trust Investigation" re- sulted in the enactment of improved re- medial laws. During the World War he acted as special adviser to the Govern- ment on the interpretation of income tax and war emergency tax laws and assisted the Provost Marshal General in the ad- ministration of the Selective Service Law. In 1919 he became special counsel to the Joint Committee of the New York Legislature, investigating the building and housing conditions in New York City, and succeeded in unearthing serious scandals and in indicting a large number of individuals and corporation Sc He was known as an advocate of public ownership of public utilities and of a national corporations law. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Con- ventions in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1916. Besides acting as executor and trustee of many large estates, he was a member of the United States Section of the In- UPAS TREE ternational High Commission, a member of many legal societies and an officer of the New York State Industrial Farm Colony and of the Andrew Freedman Home. UNTERWALDEN, one of the four "Forest Cantons" of Switzerland, forms part of the hill country which surrounds the Lake of Lucerne; area, 295 square miles; pop. about 33,000. Unterwalden is divided into two parts. Upper and Lower; the capital of the Nidwald is Stanz, and of the Obwald Sarnen. UPANISHADS, in Hindu sacred liter- ature, the name given to the Vedic specu- lative treatises which were full of at- tempts to solve problems connected with the universe and the nature and destiny of man. They are 108 or more in num- ber, each Veda having a certain num- ber of upanishads connected with it. They constitute part of the Brahmanas or commentaries belonging to the Veda, presenting the Vedic doctrine in a com- prehensive form, and being of a more dogmatic character than the rest of the Brahmanas. They vary in date like the Brahmanas, which extend, according to Max Miiller, from 800 to 600 B. c. All Indian philosophers and various sects profess to derive their belief from the upanishads. UPAS TREE, the Antiaris toxicaria, a large tree growing in Java. Stem naked for the first 60, 70, or 80 feet of its height; leaves alternate, stipulate, en- tire, unequal-sided, subcordate, costately- veined; flowers in axillary or lateral drooping peduncles, monoecious; males numerous, inclosed in a hairy involucre caljrx with three or four divisions, anthers sessile, three or four; females solitary, calyx in several divisions with a long bi- partite style, and ultimately bearing a succulent drupaceous fruit. The inspis- sated juice of the upas tree constitutes a virulent poison called by the natives ant- jar, which owes its deleterious character to the presence of strychnine. The small- est wound by an arrow tipped with this poison is fatal. Toward the close of the 18th century a Dutch surgeon, Foersch, circulated in Europe various myths with regard to the upas tree. It was said to be so deadly that the poison wan collected by criminals condemned to death, who obtained their pardon if they brought away the poison which was, however, found fatal to 18 out of every 20 who made the attempt. It was destructive to all vegetable life but its own, and grew in the midst of a desert which it had made. It is now known that the upas tree was credited with the destruc- tion of animal life really attributable to
