Museum of Fine Art Schools (1885–87), and in the schools of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (1891–96), and a member of the National Academy of Design, New York (1906), and of the Secessionists, Munich. His wife, Bessie Potter Vonnoh (b. 1872), a sculptor, was a pupil of the Art Institute, Chicago, and became a member of the National Sculpture Society.
VONONES (on coins Onones), the name of two Parthian kings.
(1) Vonones I., eldest son of Phraates IV. After the assassination of Orodes II. (c. A.D. 7), the Parthians applied to Augustus for a new king from the house of Arsaces. Augustus sent them Vonones (Mon. Anc. 5, 9; Tac. Ann. ii. 1 f.; Joseph. Ant. xviii. 2, 4), who was living as a hostage in Rome. But Vonones could not maintain himself; he had been educated as a Roman, and was despised as a slave of the Romans. Another member of the Arsacid house, Artabanus II., who was living among the Dahan nomads, was invited to the throne, and defeated and expelled Vonones. The coins of Vonones (who always uses his proper name) date from A.D. 8–12, those of Artabanus II. begin in A.D. 10. Vonones fled into Armenia and became king here. But Artabanus demanded his deposition, and as Augustus did not wish to begin a war with the Parthians he removed Vonones into Syria, where he was kept in custody (Tac. Ann. ii. 4). When he tried to escape, A.D. 19, he was killed by his guards (Tac. Ann. ii. 58, 68).
(2) Vonones II., governor of Media, was raised to the throne after the death of Gotarzes in A.D. 51 (perhaps he was his brother, cf. Joseph. Ant. xx. 3, 4). But he died after a few months, and was succeeded by his son Vologaeses I. (Tac. Ann. xii. 14). (Ed. M.)
VOODOO or Vaudoux (Creole Fr. vaudoux, a negro sorcerer, probably originally a dialectic form of Fr. Vaudois, a Waldensian), the name given to certain magical practices, superstitions and secret rites prevalent among the negroes of the West Indies, and more particularly in the Republic of Haiti.
VOORHEES, DANIEL WOLSEY (1827–1897), American lawyer and political leader, was born in Butler county, Ohio, on the 26th of September 1827, of Dutch and Irish descent. During his infancy his parents removed to Fountain county, Indiana, near Veedersburg. He graduated at Indiana Asbury (now De Pauw) University, Greencastle, Indiana, in 1849; was admitted to the bar in 1850, and began to practise in Covington, Indiana, whence in 1857 he removed to Terre Haute. In 1858–60 he was U.S. district-attorney for Indiana; in 1861–66 and in 1869–73 he was a Democratic representative in Congress; and in 1877–97 he was a member of the U.S. Senate. During the Civil War he seems to have been affiliated with the Knights of the Golden Circle, but he was not so radical as Vallandigham and others. He was a member of the committee on finance throughout his service in the Senate, and his first speech in that body was a defence of the free coinage of silver and a plea for the preservation of the full legal tender value of greenback currency, though in 1893 he voted to repeal the silver purchase clause of the Sherman Act. He had an active part in bringing about the building of the new Congressional Library. He was widely known as an effective advocate, especially in jury trials. In allusion to his unusual stature he was called “the Tall Sycamore of the Wabash.” He died in Washington, D.C., on the 10th of April 1897.
Some of his speeches were published under the title, Forty Years of Oratory (2 vols., Indianapolis, Indiana, 1898), edited by his three sons and his daughter, Harriet C. Voorhees, and with a biographical sketch by T. B. Long.
VORARLBERG, the most westerly province of the Austrian
empire, extending S. of the Lake of Constance along the right
bank of the Rhine valley. It consists of three districts, Bregenz,
Bludenz and Feldkirch, which are under the administrative
authority of the Statthalter (or prefect) at Innsbruck, but
possess a governor and a diet of their own (twenty-one members),
and send four members to the imperial parliament. Vorarlberg
is composed of the hilly region of the Bregenzerwald,
and, to its south, of the mountain valley of Montafon or of the
upper Ill, through which an easy pass, the Zeinisjoch (6076 ft.),
leads to the Tirolese valley of Paznaun, and so to Landeck.
Near Bludenz the Kloster glen parts from the Ill valley,
through the latter runs the Arlberg railway (1884)—beneath
the pass of that name (5912 ft.)—to Landeck and Innsbruck.
The Ill valley is bounded south by the snowy chain of the
Rhätikon (highest point, the Scesaplana, 9741 ft.,
a famous
view-point), and of the Silvretta (highest point, Gross Piz Buin,
10,880 ft.), both dividing Vorarlberg from Switzerland; slightly
to the north-east of Piz Buin is the Dreiländerspitze (10,539 ft.),
where the Vorarlberg, Tirolese and Swiss frontiers unite.
The total area of Vorarlberg is 1004·3 sq. m. Of this 8814%, or about 886 sq. m., is reckoned “productive,” 30% of this limited area being occupied by forests, while 118 sq. m. rank as “unproductive.” In 1900 the total population was 129,237, all but wholly German-speaking and Romanist. The largest town is Dornbirn (pop. 13,052), but Bregenz (pop. 7595) is the political capital; Feldkirch has about 4000 inhabitants, while Bludenz has rather more (see the separate articles on the three former). In the hilly districts the inhabitants mainly follow pastoral pursuits, possessing much cattle of all kinds. In the towns the spinning and weaving of cotton (introduced towards the end of the 18th century) is very flourishing. Forests cover about one-sixth of the district, and form one of the principal sources of its riches. But the Vorarlberg is predominantly an Alpine region, though its mountains rarely surpass the snow-level. Ecclesiastically it is in the diocese of Brixen, whose vicar-general (a suffragan bishop) resides at Feldkirch.
The name of the district means the “land that is beyond the Arlberg Pass,” that is, as it seems to one looking at it from the Tirol. This name is modern and is a collective appellation for the various counties or lordships in the region which the Habsburgs (after they secured Tirol in 1363) succeeded in purchasing or acquiring—Feldkirch (1375, but Hohenems in 1765 only), Bludenz with the Montafon valley (1394), Bregenz (in two parts, 1451 and 1523) and Sonnenberg (1455). After the annexation of Hohenems (its lords having become extinct in 1759), Maria Theresa united all these lordships into an administrative district of Hither Austria, under the name Vorarlberg, the governor residing at Bregenz. In 1782 Joseph II. transferred the region to the province of Tirol. The lordship of Blumenegg was added in 1804, but in 1805 all these lands were handed over, by virtue of the peace of Pressburg, to Bavaria, which in 1814 gave them all back, save Hoheneck. In 1815 the present administrative arrangements were made.
See A. Achleitner and E. Uhl, Tirol und Vorarlberg (Leipzig, 1895); J. R. von Bergmann, Landeskunde v. Vorarlberg (Innsbruck, 1868); Max Haushofer, Tirol und Vorarlberg (Bielefeld and Leipzig, 1899); J. C. Heer, Vorarlberg und Liechtenstein—Land und Leute (Feldkirch, 1906); O. von Pfister, Das Montavon (Augsburg, 1884); J. Staffler, Tirol und Vorarlberg (5 vols., Innsbruck, 1839–46); A. Steinitzer, Geschichtliche und Kulturgeschichtliche Wanderungen durch Tirol und Vorarlberg (Innsbruck, 1905); A. Waltenberger, Algäu, Vorarlberg und Westtirol (10th edition, Innsbruck, 1906).See also the list of books at the end of Tirol, and especially vol. xiii. (“Tirol u. Vorarlberg”) (Vienna, 1893) of the great official work entitled Die oesterreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild. (W. A. B. C.)
VORONEZH, a government of southern Russia, bounded N. by the government of Tambov, E. by Saratov and the Don Cossacks, S. by Kharkov and W. by Kursk and Orel; area, 25,435 sq. m. It occupies the southern slopes of the middle-Russian plateau, and its average elevation is from 450 to 700 ft. The surface is hilly, and intersected by ravines in the west (where two ranges of chalk hills separated by a broad valley run north and south), but flat and low east of the Don. Devonian sandstones crop out in the north; further south these are covered with Cretaceous deposits. Glacial clays with northern erratic boulders extend as far south as Voronezh, and extensive areas are covered with Lacustrine clays and sands. The soil is very fertile, owing to the prevalence of black earth; it becomes, however, sandy towards the east.
