wrote many pamphlets, often anonymous, and frequently not in the best of taste. For this he was arraigned before the Conference of 1796 and expelled, and he then founded the Methodist New Connexion (1798, merged since 1906 in the United Methodist Church). He died in 1798, and the success of the church he founded is a tribute to his personality and to the principles for which he strove. Kilham’s wife (Hannah Spurr, 1774–1832), whom he married only a few months before his death, became a Quaker, and worked as a missionary in the Gambia and at Sierra Leone; she reduced to writing several West African vernaculars.
KILIA, a town of S. Russia, in the government of Bessarabia,
100 m. S.W. of Odessa, on the Kilia branch of the Danube, 20 m.
from its mouth. Pop. (1897), 11,703. It has steam flour-mills
and a rapidly increasing trade. The town, anciently known as
Chilia, Chele, and Lycostomium, was a place of banishment for
political dignitaries of Byzantium in the 12th–13th centuries.
After belonging to the Genoese from 1381–1403 it was occupied
successively by Walachia and Moldavia, until in 1484 it fell into
the hands of the Ottoman Turks. It was taken from them by
the Russians in 1790. After being bombarded by the Anglo-French
fleet in July 1854, it was given to Rumania on the conclusion
of the war; but in 1878 was transferred to Russia with
Bessarabia.
KILIAN (Chilian, Killian), ST, British missionary bishop
and the apostle of eastern Franconia, where he began his
labours towards the end of the 7th century. There are several
biographies of him, the first of which dates back to the 9th
century (Bibliotheca hagiographica latina, Nos. 4660–4663). The
oldest texts which refer to him are an 8th century necrology at
Würzburg and the notice by Hrabanus Maurus in his martyrology.
According to Maurus Kilian was a native of Ireland,
whence with his companions he went to eastern Franconia. After
having preached the gospel in Würzburg, the whole party were
put to death by the orders of an unjust judge named Gozbert.
It is difficult to fix the period with precision, as the judge
(or duke) Gozbert is not known through other sources. Kilian’s
comrades, Coloman and Totman, were, according to the Würzburg
necrology, respectively priest and deacon. The elevation of
the relics of the three martyrs was performed by Burchard, the
first bishop of Würzburg, and they are venerated in the cathedral
of that town. His festival is celebrated on the 8th of July.
See Acta Sanctorum, Julii, ii. 599–619; F. Emmerich, Der heilige Kilian (Würzburg, 1896); J. O’Hanlon, Lives of the Irish Saints, vii. 122–143 (Dublin, 1875–1904); A. Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, 3rd ed., i. 382 seq. (H. De.)
KILIMANJARO, a great mountain in East Africa, its centre
lying in 3° 5′ S. and 37° 23′ E. It is the highest known summit of
the continent, rising as a volcanic cone from a plateau of about
3000 ft. to 19,321 ft. Though completely isolated it is but one
of several summits which crown the eastern edge of the great
plateau of equatorial Africa. About 200 m. almost due north,
across the wide expanse of the Kapte and Kikuyu uplands, lies
Mount Kenya, somewhat inferior in height and mass to Kilimanjaro;
and some 25 m. due west rises the noble mass of Mount
Meru.
The major axis of Kilimanjaro runs almost east and west, and on it rise the two principal summits, Kibo in the west, Mawenzi (Ki-mawenzi) in the east. Kibo, the higher, is a truncated cone with a nearly perfect extinct crater, and marks a comparatively recent period of volcanic activity; while Mawenzi (16,892 ft.) is the very ancient core of a former summit, of which the crater walls have been removed by denudation. The two peaks, about 7 m. apart, are connected by a saddle or plateau, about 14,000 ft. in altitude, below which the vast mass slopes with great regularity in a typical volcanic curve, especially in the south, to the plains below. The sides are furrowed on the south and east by a large number of narrow ravines, down which flow streams which feed the Pangani and Lake Jipe in the south and the Tsavo tributary of the Sabaki in the east. South-west of Kibo, the Shira ridge seems to be of independent origin, while in the north-west a rugged group of cones, of comparatively recent origin, has poured forth vast lava-flows. In the south-east the regularity of the outline is likewise broken by a ridge running down from Mawenzi.
The lava slopes of the Kibo peak are covered to a depth of some 200 ft. with an ice-cap, which, where ravines occur, takes the form of genuine glaciers. The crater walls are highest on the south, three small peaks, uncovered by ice, rising from the rim on this side. To the central and highest of these, the culminating point of the mountain, the name Kaiser Wilhelm Spitze has been given. The rim here sinks precipitously some 600 ft. to the interior of the crater, which measures rather over 2000 yds. in diameter, and is in part covered by ice, in part by a bare cone of ashes. On the west the rim is breached, allowing the passage of an important glacier formed from the snow which falls within the crater. Lower down this cleft, which owed its origin to dislocation, is occupied by two glaciers, one of which reaches a lower level (13,800 ft.) than any other on Kilimanjaro. On the north-west three large glaciers reach down to 16,000 ft.
Mawenzi peak has no permanent ice-cap, though at times snow lies in patches. The rock of which it is composed has become very jagged by denudation, forming stupendous walls and precipices. On the east the peak falls with great abruptness some 6500 ft. to a vast ravine, due apparently to dislocation and sinking of the ground. Below this the slope is more gradual and more symmetrical. Like the other high mountains of eastern Africa, Kilimanjaro presents well-defined zones of vegetation. The lowest slopes are arid and scantily covered with scrub, but between 4000 and 6000 ft. on the south side the slopes are well watered and cultivated. The forest zone begins, on the south, at about 6500 ft., and extends to 9500, but in the north it is narrower, and in the north-west, the driest quarter of the mountain, almost disappears. In the alpine zone, marked especially by tree lobelias and Senecio, flowering plants extend up to 15,700 ft. on the sheltered south-west flank of Mawenzi, but elsewhere vegetation grows only in dwarfed patches beyond 13,000 ft. The special fauna and flora of the upper zone are akin to those of other high African mountains, including Cameroon. The southern slopes, between 4000 and 6000 ft., form the well-peopled country of Chaga, divided into small districts.
As the natives believe that the summit of Kilimanjaro is composed of silver, it is conjectured that Aristotle’s reference to “the so-called Silver Mountain” from which the Nile flows was based on reports about this mountain. It is possible, however, that the “Silver Mountain” was Ruwenzori (q.v.), from whose snow-clad heights several headstreams of the Nile do descend. It is also possible, though improbable, that Ruwenzori and not Kilimanjaro nor Kenya may be the range known to Ptolemy and to the Arab geographers of the middle ages as the Mountains of the Moon. Reports of the existence of mountains covered with snow were brought to Zanzibar about 1845 by Arab traders. Attracted by these reports Johannes Rebmann of the Church Missionary Society journeyed inland from Mombasa in 1848 and discovered Kilimanjaro, which is some 200 m. inland. Rebmann’s account, though fully borne out by his colleague Dr Ludwig Krapf, was at first received with great incredulity by professional geographers. The matter was finally set at rest by the visits paid to the mountain by Baron Karl von der Decken (1861 and 1862) and Charles New (1867), the latter of whom reached the lower edge of the snow. Kilimanjaro has since been explored by Joseph Thomson (1883), Sir H. H. Johnston (1884), and others. It has been the special study of Dr Hans Meyer, who made four expeditions to it, accomplishing the first ascent to the summit in 1889. In the partition of Africa between the powers of western Europe, Kilimanjaro was secured by Germany (1886) though the first treaties concluded with native chiefs in that region had been made in 1884 by Sir H. H. Johnston on behalf of a British company. On the southern side of the mountain at Moshi is a German government station.
See R. Thornton (the geologist of von der Decken’s party) in Proc. of Roy. Geog. Soc. (1861–1862); Ludwig Krapf, Travels in East Africa (1860); Charles New, Life . . . in East Africa (1873); Sir J. D. Hooker in Journal of Linnean Society (1875); Sir H. H. Johnston, The Kilimanjaro Expedition (1886); Hans Meyer, Across East African Glaciers (1891); Der Kilimanjaro (Berlin, 1900). Except the last-named all these works were published in London. (E. He.)
KILIN, or Ch’-i-lin, one of the four symbolical creatures which in Chinese mythology are believed to keep watch and ward over the Celestial Empire. It is a unicorn, portrayed in Chinese art as having the body and legs of a deer and an ox’s
