to the Teutonic Knights. Tsar Alexis of Russia plundered and burnt it in 1655. Here the Russians defeated the Poles on the 26th of June 1831.
KOVROV, a town of Russia, in the government of Vladimir, 40 m. N.E. of the city of Vladimir by the railway from Moscow to Nizhniy-Novgorod, and on the Klyazma River. It has railway-carriage works, cotton mills, steam flour mills, tallow works and quarries of limestone, and carries on an active trade in the export of wooden wares and in the import of grain, salt and
fish, brought from the Volga governments. Pop. (1890), 6600; (1900), 16,806.
KOWTOW, or Kotou, the Chinese ceremonial act of prostration as a sign of homage, submission, or worship. The word is
formed from ko, knock, and tou, head. To the emperor, the
“kowtow” is performed by kneeling three times, each act
accompanied by touching the ground with the forehead.
KOZLOV, a town of Russia, in the government of Tambov, on
the Lyesnoi Voronezh River, 45 m. W.N.W. of the city of Tambov
by rail. Pop. (1900), 41,555. Kozlov had its origin in a small
monastery, founded in the forest in 1627; nine years later, an
earthwork was raised close by, for the protection of the Russian
frontier against the Tatars. Situated in a very fertile country,
on the highway to Astrakhan and at the head of water communication
with the Don, the town soon became a centre
of trade; as the junction of the railways leading to the Sea of
Azov, to Tsaritsyn on the lower Volga, to Saratov and to Orel,
its importance has recently been still further increased. Its
export of cattle, grain, meat, eggs (22,000,000), tallow, hides, &c.,
is steadily growing, and it possesses factories, flour mills, tallow
works, distilleries, tanneries and glue works.
KRAAL, also spelt craal, kraul, &c. (South African Dutch,
derived possibly from a native African word, but probably from
the Spanish corral, Portuguese curral, an enclosure for horses,
cattle and the like), in South and Central Africa, a native
village surrounded by a palisade, mud wall or other fencing
roughly circular in form; by transference, the community living
within the enclosure. Folds for animals and enclosures made
specially for defensive purposes are also called kraals.
KRAFFT (or Kraft), ADAM (c. 1455–1507), German sculptor,
of the Nuremberg school, was born, probably at Nuremberg,
about the middle of the 15th century, and died, some say in the
hospital, at Schwabach, about 1507. He seems to have emerged
as sculptor about 1490, the date of the seven reliefs of scenes
from the life of Christ, which, like almost every other specimen
of his work, are at Nuremberg. The date of his last work, an
Entombment, with fifteen life-size figures, in the Holzschuher
chapel of the St John’s cemetery, is 1507. Besides these,
Krafft’s chief works are several monumental reliefs in the various
churches of Nuremberg; he produced the great Schreyer monument
(1492) for St Sebald’s at Nuremberg, a skilful though
mannered piece of sculpture opposite the Rathaus, with realistic
figures in the costume of the time, carved in a way more suited
to wood than stone, and too pictorial in effect; Christ bearing
the Cross, above the altar of the same church; and various works
made for public and private buildings, as the relief over the door
of the Wagehaus, a St George and the Dragon, several Madonnas,
and some purely decorative pieces, as coats of arms. His masterpiece
is perhaps the magnificent tabernacle, 62 ft. high, in the
church of St Laurence (1493–1500). He also made the great
tabernacle for the Host, 80 ft. high, covered with statuettes, in
Ulm Cathedral, and the very spirited “Stations of the Cross” on
the road to the Nuremberg cemetery.
See Adam Krafft und seine Schule, by Friedrich Wanderer (1869); Adam Krafft und die Künstler seiner Zeit, by Berthold Daun (1897); Albert Gümbel in Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, Bd. xxv. Heft 5, 1902.
KRAGUYEVATS (also written Kraguievatz and Kragujevac),
the capital of the Kraguyevats department of Servia;
situated 59 m. S.S.W. of Belgrade, in a valley of the Shumadia,
or “forest-land,” and on the Lepenitsa, a small stream flowing
north-east to join the Morava. On the opposite bank stands the
picturesque hamlet of Obilichevo, with a large powder factory.
Kraguyevats itself is the main arsenal of Servia, and possesses
an iron-foundry and a steam flour-mill. It is the seat of the
district prefecture, of a tribunal, of a fine library, and of a
large garrison. It boasts the finest college building and the
finest modern cathedral (in Byzantine style) in Servia. In
the first years of Servia’s autonomy under Prince Milosh, it
was the residence of the prince and the seat of government
(1818–1839). Even later, between 1868 and 1880, the national
assembly (Narodna Skupshtina) usually met there. In 1885 it
was connected by a branch line (Kraguyevats-Lapovo) with
the principal railway (Belgrade-Nish), and thenceforward the
prosperity of the town steadily increased. Pop. (1900), 14,160.
KRAKATOA (Krakatao, Krakatau), a small volcanic island in Sunda Strait, between the islands of Java and Sumatra, celebrated for its eruption in 1883, one of the most stupendous ever recorded. At some early period a large volcano rose in the
centre of the tract where the Sunda Strait now runs. Long before any European had visited these waters an explosion took place by which the mountain was so completely blown away
that only the outer portions of its base were left as a broken ring
of islands. Subsequent eruptions gradually built up a new
series of small cones within the great crater ring. Of these
the most important rose to a height of 2623 ft. above the sea and
formed the peak of the volcanic island of Krakatoa. But compared
with the great neighbouring volcanoes of Java and Sumatra,
the islets of the Sunda Strait were comparatively unknown.
Krakatoa was uninhabited, and no satisfactory map or chart of
it had been made. In 1680 it appears to have been in eruption,
when great earthquakes took place and large quantities of pumice
were ejected. But the effects of this disturbance had been so
concealed by the subsequent spread of tropical vegetation that
the very occurrence of the eruption had sometimes been called
in question. At last, about 1877, earthquakes began to occur
frequently in the Sunda Strait and continued for the next few
years. In 1883 the manifestations of subterranean commotion
became more decided, for in May Krakatoa broke out in eruption.
For some time the efforts of the volcano appear to have
consisted mainly in the discharge of pumice and dust, with the
usual accompaniment of detonations and earthquakes. But
on the 26th of August a succession of paroxysmal explosions
began which lasted till the morning of the 28th. The four most
violent took place on the morning of the 27th. The whole of
the northern and lower portion of the island of Krakatoa, lying
within the original crater ring of prehistoric times, was blown
away; the northern part of the cone of Rakata almost entirely
disappeared, leaving a vertical cliff which laid bare the inner
structure of that volcano. Instead of the volcanic island which
had previously existed, and rose from 300 to 1400 ft. above the
sea, there was now left a submarine cavity, the bottom of which
was here and there more than 1000 ft. below the sea-level.
This prodigious evisceration was the result of successive violent
explosions of the superheated vapour absorbed in the molten
magma within the crust of the earth. The vigour and repetition
of these explosions, it has been suggested, may have been caused
by sudden inrushes of the water of the ocean as the throat of
the volcano was cleared and the crater ring was lowered and
ruptured. The access of large bodies of cold water to the top
of the column of molten lava would probably give rise at once
to some minor explosions, and then to a chilling of the surface
of the lava and a consequent temporary diminution or even
cessation of the volcanic eructations. But until the pent-up
water-vapour in the lava below had found relief it would only
gather strength until it was able to burst through the chilled
crust and overlying water, and to hurl a vast mass of cooled
lava, pumice and dust into the air.
The amount of material discharged during the two days of paroxysmal energy was enormous, though there are no satisfactory data for even approximately estimating it. A large cavity was formed where the island had previously stood, and the sea-bottom around this crater was covered with a wide and thick sheet of fragmentary materials. Some of the surrounding islands received such a thick accumulation of ejected stones and
