whether some occasional extraordinary rises of level were due to a movement of the earth's crust or merely to an increase of rainfall as compared with evaporation. Gunther calculated that the lake covered 1795 sq. m., but he did not state whether during high or low water. De Morgan gives 4000 and 6000 sq. kilometres (1544 and 2317 sq. m.) for low and high water respectively. In the southern half of the lake is a cluster of about fifty rocky islands composed of Miocene strata with marine shells, echinoderms and corals, much resembling the beds of the Vienna basin. The largest of these islands, Koyun daghi, i.e. “ Sheep-mountain,” is 3 to 4 m. long and has a spring of sweet water near which a few people settle occasionally for looking after herds of goats and sheep taken there for grazing. All the islands are uninhabited and some are mere bare rocks of little extent. Although fed by many rivers and streams of sweet water the lake is very saline and its water is about three-fifths as salt as the water of the Dead Sea—far too salt to permit the existence of fish life. The specific gravity of the water is 1.155 during low water and 1.113 during high water. The principal salts contained in solution are sodium chloride, bromide and iodide and sulphates of magnesia, soda and iron. The only organisms living in the lake are a species of artemia, a crustacean known from other brine lakes in Europe and North America, the larva of a species of dipterous insect, probably allied to ephydra, and green vegetable masses composed of bacterial zoogloeae covered with a species of diatom. The rivers which flow into the lake drain an area of nearly 20,000 sq. m.; chub and roach are found in all of them, silurus in some. The lake is navigated by a few round-bottomed boats with round bows and flat sterns, each of about 20 tons burden and carrying an enormous square sail.
Strabo (xi. c. 13, 2) mentions the lake with the name Spauta, a clerical error for Kapauta, from Pers. Kapaut, New Pers. Kebud, meaning “ blue.” Old Armenian writers have Kapoit-dzov, “ the blue sea." in the Zendavesta and Bundahish it is called “ Chaechasta," and Firdousi in his Shahnamah (11th century) has “ Chichast."
See J. de Morgan, Mission scientifique en Perse (1894); R. T. Günther, “ Lake Urmi and its Neighbourhood,” Geogr. Journ. (November 1899). (A. H.-S.)
URN (Lat. urna, either from root of urere, to burn, being
made of burnt clay, or connected with urceus, Gr. ὔρχα, jar),
a vessel or vase, particularly one with an oviform body and a
foot. The Roman term urna was used primarily of a jar for
carrying or drawing water, but was also specifically applied
to the vessel in which the voting-tablets (tabellae) and lots
(sortes) were cast, whence its ngurative use for the urn of fate
from which are drawn the varying lots of man's destiny. The
ashes of the cremated dead were deposited in cinerary urns, a
custom perpetuated by the marble or other urns placed upon
funeral monuments. The Roman urna was also a liquid
measure containing half an amphora, or about 3½ gallons.
Modern usage has given the name to large silver or copper
vessels containing tea or coffee with a tap for drawing off the
liquids and heated either by a spirit lamp or, as in the older
forms, by the insertion of a hot iron in a special receptacle
placed in the body of the vessel.
UROTROPIN (hexamethylenetetramine), known also in the
United States under the name Uritone, a medicinal preparation
due to the action of ammonia on formaldehyde. It consists of
colourless granular crystals freely soluble in water and having
an alkaline reaction. Urotropin is among the most powerful
of urinary antiseptics. It was formerly thought that its action
was due to the setting free of formaldehyde in the urine, but it is
now known by the researches of P. Cammidge that this is not so.
It is used to render the uric acid in cases where it is alkaline,
loaded with phosphates or purulent, and it is thus useful in cases
of cystitis. It is slightly diuretic. Experimentally it has been
shown to have a solvent acid on uric acid, but its action in this
direction in the body requires confirmation. Urotropin is very
valuable in sterilizing the urine of patients who have suffered
from typhoid fever and thus preventing the spread of the
disease by what are known as "typhoid carriers." Analogous
preparations are cystamine, helmitol and hetraline. Chinotropin
is urotropin quinate, and borovertin is urotropin triborate.
URQUHART, DAVID (1805–1877), British diplomatist and
publicist, born at Braelangwell, Cromarty. He came of a
good Scottish family and was educated in France, Switzerland
and Spain, and then at St John's College, Oxford. In 1827
he went under Lord Cochrane (Dundonald) to fight for the
Greeks in the War of Independence; he was prese*nt at the
action of the 28th of September when Captain Hastings
destroyed the Turkish squadron in the Bay of Salona, and as
lieutenant of the frigate " Hellas " he was severely wounded
in the attack on Scio. In November 1828 he left the Greek
service. In 1830 he privately examined the new Greek frontier
as determined by the protocol of March 22, 1829, and the value
of his reports to the government led to his being named British
commissioner to accompany Prince Leopold of Coburg to
Greece, but the appointment fell to the ground with that
prince's refusal of the Greek throne. His knowledge of the
local conditions, however, led to his being appointed in November
1831 attaché to Sir Stratford Canning (Lord Stratford de Red-
cliffe, q.v.), ambassador extraordinary to the sultan, for the
purpose of finally deliminating the frontiers of Turkey and
Greece. On his return to England he published in 1833 Turkey and its Resources, a violent denunciation of Russia. In 1833 he was sent on a secret mission to Turkey to inquire into possible openings for British trade, and at Constantinople he gained the complete confidence of the Turkish government. The situation, however, was a delicate one, and Urquhart's outspoken advocacy of British intervention on behalf of the sultan against Mehemet Ali, the policy of Stratford Canning, made him a danger to international peace; he was consequently recalled by Palmerston. At this time appeared his pamphlet England, France, Russia and Turkey, the violent anti-Russian character of which brought him into conflict with Richard Cobden. In 1835 he was appointed secretary of embassy at Constantinople, but an unfortunate attempt
to counteract Russian aggressive designs in Circassia, which threatened to lead to an international crisis, again led to his
recall in 1837. In 1835, before leaving for the East, he founded
a periodical called the Portfolio, and in the first issue printed
a series of Russian state papers, which made a profound im-
pression. From 1847 to 1852 he sat in parliament as member
for Stafford, and carried on a vigorous crusade against Lord
Palmerston's foreign policy. The action of England in the
Crimean War provoked indignant protests from Urquhart, who
contended that Turkey was in a position to fight her own
battles without the assistance of other Powers. To attack the
government, he organized " foreign affairs committees " which
became known as " Urquhartite," throughout the country,
and in 1855 founded the Free Press (in 1866 renamed the
Diplomatic Review), which numbered among its contributors
the socialist Karl Marx. In 1860 he published his book on
The Lebanon. From 1864 until his death Urquhart's health
compelled him to live on the continent, where he devoted his
energies to promoting the study of international law. He died
on the 16th of May 1877. His wife (Harriet Chichester Fortescue),
by whom he had two sons and two daughters, and who died in
1889, wrote numerous articles in the Diplomatic Review over
the signature of " Caritas."
To Urquhart is due the introduction into Great Britain of hot-air Turkish baths. He advocated their use in his book called Pillars of Hercules (1850), which attracted the attention of the Irish physician Dr Richard Baxter (1802–1870), and the latter introduced them in his system of hydropathy at Blarney, Co. Cork. The Turkish baths in Jermyn Street, London, were built under Urquhart's direction.
URQUHART, or Urchard, SIR THOMAS (1611–1660), Scottish author and translator of Rabelais, was the son of Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, the representative of a very ancient family, and of Christian, daughter of the fourth Lord Elphinstone. Sir Thomas was hard pressed by his creditors,, and after part of the family estate had been alienated received
