a multiple star, situated in the famous nebula of Orion, one of the most beautiful in the heavens. (See Nebula.)
ORION and ORUS, the names of several Greek grammarians, frequently confused. The following are the most important,
(1) Orion of Thebes in Egypt (5th century A.D.), the teacher
of Proclus the neo-Platonist and of Eudocia, the wife of the
younger Theodosius. He taught at Alexandria, Caesarea in
Cappadocia and Byzantium. He was the author of a partly
extant etymological Lexicon (ed. F. W. Sturz, 1820), largely
used by the compilers of the Etymologicum Magnum, the Etymologicum
Gudianum and other similar works; a collection of
maxims in three books, addressed to Eudocia, also ascribed
to him by Suidas, still exists in a Warsaw MS. (2) Orus of
Miletus, who, according to Ritschl, flourished not later than the
2nd century A.D., and was a contemporary of Herodian and a
little junior to Phrynichus (according to Reitzenstein he was
a contemporary of Orion). His chief works were treatises on
orthography; on Atticisms, written in opposition to Phrynichus;
on the names of nations.
See F. Ritschl, De Oro et Orione Commentatio (1834); R. Reitzenstein, Geschichte der griechischen Etymologika (1897}; and article “Orion” in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography.
ORISKANY, a village of Oneida county, New York, U.S.A.,
about 7 m. N.W. of Utica. Pop. about 800. Oriskany is served
by the New York Central & Hudson River railway. There are
malleable iron works and a manufactory of paper makers’ felts
here. In a ravine, about 2 m. west of Oriskany, was fought
on the 6th of August 1777 the battle of Oriskany, an important
minor engagement of the American War of Independence.
On the 4th of August Gen. Nicholas Herkimer, who had been
colonel of the Tyrone county (New York) militia in 1775, and
had been made a brigadier-general of the state militia in 1776,
had gathered about 800 militiamen at Fort Dayton (on the site
of the present Herkimer, New York) for the relief of Fort Schuyler
(see Rome, N.Y.) then besieged by British and Indians under
Colonel Barry St Leger and Joseph Brant. On the 6th General
Herkimer’s force, on its march to Fort Schuyler, was ambushed
by a force of British under Sir John Johnson and Indians under
Joseph Brant in the ravine above mentioned. The rear portion
of Herkimer’s troops escaped from the trap, but were pursued
by the Indians, and many of them were overtaken and killed.
Between the remainder and the British and Indians there was
a desperate hand-to-hand conflict, interrupted by a violent
thunderstorm, with no quarter shown by either side. On
hearing the firing near Fort Schuyler (incident to a sortie by
Lieut.-Colonel Marinus Willett) the British withdrew, after
about 200 Americans had been killed and as many more taken
prisoners, the loss of the British in killed being about the same.
General Herkimer (who had advised advancing slowly, awaiting
signal shots announcing the sortie, and had been called “Tory”
and “coward” in consequence), though his leg had been broken
by a shot at the beginning of the action, continued to direct
the fighting on the American side, but died on the 16th of August
as a result of the clumsy amputation of his leg. The battle,
though indecisive, had an important influence in preventing
St Leger from effecting a junction with General Burgoyne.
The battlefield is marked by a monument erected in 1884.
See Orderly Book of Sir John Johnson during the Oriskany Campaign (Albany, 1882), with notes by W. L. Stone and J. W. De Peyster; Publications of the Oneida Historical Society, vol. i. (Utica, N.Y., 1877); and Phoebe S. Cowen, The Herkimers and Schuylers (Albany, 1903).
ORISSA, a tract of India, in Bengal, consisting of a British division and twenty-four tributary states. The historical capital is Cuttack; and Puri, with its temple of Jagannath, is world famous. Orissa differs from the rest of Bengal in being under a temporary settlement of land revenue. A new settlement for a term of thirty years was concluded in 1900, estimated to raise the total land revenue by more than one half; the greater part of this increase being levied gradually during the first eleven years of the term. To obviate destructive inundations
and famines, the Orissa system of canals has been constructed, with a capital outlay of nearly two millions sterling.
(See Mahanadi). The province is traversed by the East Coast railway, which was opened throughout from Calcutta to Madras in 1901.
The Division of Orissa consists of the five districts of Cuttack, Puri, Balasore, Sambolpur and the forfeited state of Angul. Total area 13,770 sq. m.; pop. (1901) 5,003,121, showing an increase of 7% in the decade. According to the census of 1901 the total number of persons in all India speaking Oriya was more than 912 millions, showing that the linguistic area (extending into Madras and the Central Provinces) is much larger than the political province.
The whole of Orissa is holy ground. On the southern bank of the Baitarani shrine rises after shrine in honour of Siva, the All-Destroyer. On leaving the stream the pilgrim enters Jajpur, literally the city of sacrifice, the headquarters of the region of pilgrimage sacred to the wife of the All-Destroyer. There is not a fiscal division in Orissa without its community of cenobites, scarcely a village without consecrated lands, and not a single ancient family that has not devoted its best acres to the gods. Every town is filled with temples, and every hamlet has its shrine. The national reverence of the Hindus for holy places has been for ages concentrated on Puri, sacred to Vishnu under his title of Jagannath, the Lord of the World. Besides its copious water-supply in time of high flood, Orissa has an average rainfall of 6212 in. per annum. Nevertheless, the uncontrolled state of the water-supply has subjected the country from time immemorial to droughts no less than to inundation. Thus the terrible famine of 1865–1866, which swept away one-fourth of the entire population, was followed in 1866 by a flood which destroyed crops to the value of £3,000,000. Since then much has been done by government to husband the abundant water-supply.
The early history of the kingdom of Orissa (Odra-desa), as recorded in the archives of the temple of Jagannath, is largely mythical. A blank in the records from about 50 B.C. to A.D. 319 corresponds to a period of Yavana occupation and Buddhist influence, during which the numerous rock monasteries of Orissa were excavated. The founder of the Kesari or Lion dynasty, which ruled from A.D. 474 to 1132, is said to have restored the worship of Jagannath, and under this line the great Sivaite temple at Bhuvaneswar was constructed. In 1132 a new line (the Gajapati dynasty) succeeded, and Vishnu took the place of Siva in the royal worship. This dynasty was extinguished in 1532–1534, and in 1578, after half a century of war, Orissa became a province of the Mogul empire. It nominally passed to the British in 1765, by the Diwani grant of Bengal, Bhar and Orissa; but at that time it was occupied by the Mahratta raja of Nagpur, from whom it was finally conquered in 1803.
The Tributary States of Orissa, known also as the Tributary Mahals, or the Garhjats, occupy the hills between the British districts and the Central Provinces. The most important are Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Baud and Nayagarh. In 1905 five Oriya-speaking states (Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonpur, Patna and Kalahandi) were added from the Central Provinces and two (Gangpur and Bonai) from the Chota Nagpur states. This made the total area 28,046 sq. m. and the pop. (1901) 3,173,395.
Up to the year 1888 some doubt existed as to the actual position of the Tributary states of Orissa; but in that year the secretary of state accepted the view that they did not form part of British India, and modified powers were handed over to the Orissa chiefs under the control of a superintendent.
See Sir W. W. Hunter, Orissa (1872).
ORISTANO, a town and archiepiscopal see of Sardinia, situated
23 ft. above sea-level, about 3 m. from the eastern shore of a
gulf on the W. coast, to which it gives its name, and 59 m. N.
by W. of Cagliari by rail. Pop. (1901) 7107. The town preserves
some scanty remains of the walls (dating from the end of the 13th
century), by which it was surrounded, and two gates, the Porta
Manna, surmounted by a lofty square tower, known also as the
Torre S. Cristoforo, and the Porta Marina. The houses are
largely constructed of sun-dried bricks, and are low, so that the
area of the town is considerable in proportion to its population.
