URAL 134 UBANUS New System of Infanti7 Tactics" (1867); "Tactics for Non-Military Bodies" (1870) ; "The Armies of Asia and Europe" (1878) ; and "The Military Policy of the United States." He died in San Francisco, Cal., March 14, 1881. TJRAL, a river of Russia; rises on the E. side of the Urals in the province of Orenburg, and runs mainly S. for 1,400 miles, into the Caspian sea, being practically the boundary between Europe and Asia. It gives name to a province, Uralsk, which lies mainly E. of the river and N. of the Caspian, belonging to the Steppe region and to the "Kirghiz prov- inces" included in Asiatic Russia. URAL MOUNTAINS, the longest chain of mountains running N. and S. in the Old World, extending for 1,970 miles from the deep basin of the Cas- pian and Aral seas in lat. 45° 50' N. to the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and across the Kara Strait into Novaia Zemlia, terminating at lat. 76%° N. They divide themselves into three sections: (1) The Northern Urals, from the Arctic Ocean to the source of the Petchora, con- sisting of wild and rocky mountains, mostly Avithout vegetation, rising at the highest point, Telp6s-is, to 5,435 feet. Though only 50 miles in breadth, several parallel chains are formed separated by long valleys crossed transversely by de- pressions which form easy passes for the transport of the produce of Siberia to Archangel. (2) The Middle Urals, ex- tending S. to the source of the Ufa, a broad table-land rather than a mountain chain, of moderate height, sloping gradu- ally W. and E. The highest points are Nurtchum (5,315 feet), Kirtim (4,265 feet), and Kumba (3,330 feet). The road from Perm to Jekaterinburg is the prin- cipal pass. The mineral wealth of the Middle Urals is great and consists of gold, silver, copper, platinum, iron, and coal. This district yields one-third of the whole iron produce of Russia. (3) The Southern Urals extending S. in three divisions, the extreme W. of which stretches along the right bank of the Ural river. Its highest points are Iremel (5,230 feet), Taganai (3,440 feet), and Vurma (3,448 feet). URALSK, a province of Russia, lying in the main east of the Ural river. It is one of the border provinces between Europe and Asia and has an area of 139,168 square miles. It is largely made up of dry steppes and deserts inclining to the Caspian, with a number of salt lakes and streams, of which only the Ural and the Emba reach the Caspian. The temperature varies greatly, the land is arid, the leading occupations being fishing and cattle raising. The fish prod- ucts are valuable and those exported exceed in annual value $1,500,000. Pop. about 880,000, two-thirds being Kir- ghizes. The capital of the province is Uralsk; pop. about 50,000. URANINITE, or PITCHBLENDE, an ore of uranium from which radium is prepared. It is found in small quantities in Cornwall (England), Austria, Colo- rado, Connecticut, and North Carolina. The name is derived from the German Pechblende, owing to the similarity of the mineral to pitch and zinc-blende. It is black and opaque, with a dull luster, and gives a brownish black streak on paper. It may contain as much as 88 per cent, of uranium oxide, with small percentages of other rare metals, includ- ing thorium, cerium, zirconium, lan- thanum, yttrium and erbium, the amount of radium amounting to only one part in five million. URANIUM, a metallic element, sym- bol U, atomic weight 238.5. Discovered in 1789 by Klaproth, in pitchblende, but first prepared in the pure state by Peli- got, in 1840. Its principal ore is pitch- blende, but it is also found in clevite, carnitite, samarskite, and fergusonite. It is a white metal, capable of taking a very high polish, with a density of 18.7. It melts at a white heat, and can be dis- tilled in the electric furnace. Chemically it is allied to chromium, molybdenum, and tungsten, and forms two series of salts, uranous and uranyl. URANUS, in Greek mythology, the most ancient of all the gods. He married Gsea, or Earth, by whom he had, first, the children called the hundred-handed, Briareus, Cottus, and Gyges; secondly, the Cyclopes, Arges, Steropes, and Brontes; thirdly, the Titans, Oceanus, Cosus, Saturnus, etc., and lastly, the Giants. He was dethroned and mutilated by his son Saturnus, and from his blood sprang the Furies, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megsera. URUNAS, in astronomy, one of the superior planets between Saturn and Neptune. It was not known to the ancients. When Sir William Herschel, after the construction of his great re- flecting telescope, was systematically ex- amining with it all the stars above a certain magnitude, he, on March 13, 1781, found in the constellation Gemini a star which he recognized as having a disk which the others had not. He took it for a comet, and other contemporary astronomers held the same view. Its dis- tance from the sun is about 1,800,000,000 miles, and it travels once around the orbit in about 87 years. It receives only
