The valley was discovered in 1851 by a military company in pursuit of marauding Indians; regular tourist travel began in 1856. The first permanent settler in the valley was Mr J. C. Lamon, who built a cabin in the upper end of it in 1860 and planted gardens and orchards. In 1864 the valley was granted to the state of California by act of Congress on condition that it should be held as a place of public use, resort and recreation inalienable for all time, was re-ceded to the United States by California on the 3rd of March 1905, and is now included in the Yosemite National Park.
In the number and height of its vertical falls and in the massive grandeur of El Capitan and Half Dome rocks Yosemite is unrivalled. But there are many other valleys of the same kind. The most noted of those in the Sierra, visited every summer by tourists, hunters and mountaineers, are the Hetch Hetchy Valley, a wonderful counterpart of Yosemite in the Tuolumne canyon; Tehipitee Valley, in the Middle Fork canyon of King's river; and the King's river Yosemite in the South Fork canyon, the latter being larger and deeper than the Merced Yosemite. All are similar in their trends, forms, sculpture and vegetation, and are plainly and harmoniously related to the ancient glaciers. The Romsdal and Nacrodal of Norway and Lauterbrunnen of the Alps are well characterized glacial valleys of the Yosemite type, and in S.E. Alaska many may be observed in process of formation.
See the Annual Reports (Washington, 1891 sqq.) of the Superintendent of the Park; the Guide to the Yosemite published by the California Geological Survey; John Muir, Our National Parks (Boston, 1901); and Bunnell's Discovery of the Yosemite (New York, 1893). (J. Mu.*)
YOUGHAL (pronounced Yawl), a seaport, market town and watering-place of county Cork, Ireland, on the W. side of the Blackwater estuary, and on the Cork & Youghal branch of the Great Southern & Western railway, 2634 m. E. of Cork. Pop. (1901) 5393- The collegiate church of St Mary, in the later Decorated style, was erected in the 11th century, but rebuilt in the 13th, and since that time frequently restored. It contains a beautiful monument to the 1st earl of Cork. The college was founded by an earl of Desmond in 1464. There are still a few fragments of the Dominican friary founded in 1269. The Clock Gate (1771) is noticeable, and portions of the old walls are to be seen. Myrtle Grove was formerly the residence of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was mayor of Youghal in 1588–89, and is said to have first cultivated the potato here. The harbour is safe and commodious, but has a bar at the mouth. At the N. extremity of the harbour the river is crossed by a bridge on wooden piles. The principal exports are corn and other agricultural produce; the imports are coal, culm, timber and slate. Coarse earthenware and bricks are manufactured. Fine point-lace commanding high prices is made by the Presentation Sisters. The Blackwater is famous for salmon, and sea-fishing is important. The Strand, the modern portion of the town, has all the attributes of a seaside resort.
Youghal (Eschaill, “the Yew wood”) was made a settlement of the Northmen in the 9th century, and was incorporated by King John in 1209. The Franciscan monastery, founded at Youghal by FitzGerald in 1224, was the earliest house of that order in Ireland. Sir Roger Mortimer landed at Youghal in 1317. The town was plundered by the earl of Desmond in 1579. In 1641 it was garrisoned and defended by the earl of Cork. In 1649 it declared for the parliament, and was occupied as his headquarters by Cromwell. It sent two members to parliament from 1374 till the Union, after that only one down to 1885.
YOUNG, ARTHUR (1741–1820), English writer on agriculture and social economy, second son of the Rev. Arthur Young, rector of Bradfield, in Suffolk, chaplain to Speaker Onslow, was born on the 11th of September 1741. After being at a school at Lavenham, he was in 1758 placed in a mercantile house at Lynn, but showed no taste for commercial pursuits. He published, when only seventeen, a pamphlet On the War in North America, and in 1761 went to London and started a periodical work, entitled The Universal Museum, which was dropped by the advice of Samuel Johnson. He also wrote four novels, and Reflections on the Present State of Affairs at Home and Abroad in 1759. After his father's death in 1739, his mother had given him the direction of the family estate at Bradfield Hall; but the property was small and encumbered with debt. From 1763 to 1766 he devoted himself to farming on his mother's property. In 1765 he married a Miss Allen; but the union is said not to have been happy, though he was of domestic habits and an affectionate father. In 1767 he undertook on his own account the management of a farm in Essex. He engaged in various experiments, and embodied the results of them in A Course of Experimental Agriculture (1770). Though Young's experiments were, in general, unsuccessful, he thus acquired a solid knowledge of agriculture. He had already begun a series of journeys through England and Wales, and gave an account of his observations in books which appeared from 1768 to 1770—A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales, A Six Months’ Tour through the North of England and the Farmer's Tour through the East of England. He says that these books contained the only extant information relative to the rental, produce and stock of England that was founded on actual examination. They were very favourably received, being translated into most European languages by 1792.
In 1768 he published the Farmer's Letters to the People of England, in 1771 the Farmer's Calendar, which went through a great number of editions, and in 1774 his Political Arithmetic, which was widely translated. About this time Young acted as parliamentary reporter for the Morning Post. He made a tour in Ireland in 1776, publishing his Tour in Ireland in 1780. In 1784 he began the publication of the Annals of Agriculture, which was continued for 45 volumes: this work had many contributors, among whom was George III., writing under the nom de plume of “Ralph Robinson.” Young's first visit to France was made in 1787. Traversing that country in every direction just before and during the first movements of the Revolution, he has given valuable notices of the condition of the people and the conduct of public affairs at that critical juncture. The Travels in France appeared in 2 vols. in 1792. On his return home he was appointed secretary of the Board of Agriculture, then (1793) just formed under the presidency of Sir John Sinclair. In this capacity he gave most valuable assistance in the collection and preparation of agricultural surveys of the English counties. His sight, however, failed, and in 1811 he had an operation for cataract, which proved unsuccessful. He suffered also in his last years from stone. He died on the 20th of April 1820. He left an autobiography in MS., which was edited (1898) by Miss M. Betham-Edwards, and is the main authority for his life; and also the materials for a great work on the “Elements and practice of agriculture.”
Arthur Young was the greatest of all English writers on agriculture; but it is as a social and political observer that he is best known, and his Tour in Ireland and Travels in France are still full of interest and instruction. He saw clearly and exposed unsparingly the causes which retarded the progress of Ireland. He strongly urged the repeal of the penal laws which pressed upon the Catholics; he condemned the restrictions imposed by Great Britain on the commerce of Ireland, and also the perpetual interference of the Irish parliament with industry by prohibitions and bounties. He favoured a legislative union of Ireland with Great Britain, though he did not regard such a measure as absolutely necessary, many of its advantages being otherwise attainable.
The soil of France he found in general superior to that of England, and its produce less. Agriculture was neither as well understood nor as much esteemed as in England. He severely censured the higher classes for their neglect of it. “Banishment (from court) alone will force the French nobility to execute what the English do for pleasure—reside upon and adorn their estates.” Young saw the commencement of violence in the rural districts, and his sympathies began to take the side of the classes suffering from the excesses of the Revolution. This change of attitude was shown by his publication in 1793 of a tract entitled The Example of France a Warning to England. Of the profounder significance of the French outbreak he seems to have had little idea, and thought the crisis would be met by a constitutional adjustment in accordance with the English type. He strongly condemned the metayer system, then widely prevalent in France, as “perpetuating poverty and excluding instruction”—as, in fact, the ruin of the country. Some of his phrases have been often quoted by the advocates of peasant
