Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 10.djvu/367

WASHINGTON AND LEE TJNIV. 309 WASP WASHINGTON AND LEE UNI- VERSITY, an educational non-sectarian institute in Lexington, Va.; was founded in 1749 by the Rev. William Graham as an academy at Timber Ridge meeting house, afterward developed into Wash- ington University, and finally received its present name in honor of General Robert E. Lee, who after the Civil War became its president. He is buried in the college chapel, where a noble recum- bent statue in marble marks his resting place. It reported at the close of 1919: Professors and instructors, 30; students, 626. President, H. L. Smith, LL.D. WASHINGTON MONUMENT, a mag- nificent monument erected by the Amer- ican people in honor of George Wash- ington. It stands in the Mall, a public park on the banks of the Potomac and Tiber creek, Washington, D. C. The corner stone was laid by President Polk, July 4, 1848, and Dec. 6, 1884, the cap stone was set in position. The founda- tions are 126% feet square and 36 feet 8 inches deep. The base of the monu- ment is 55 feet 1% inches square, and the walls 15 feet ii inch thick. At the 500 foot mark, where the pyramidal top be^ns, the shaft is 34 feet 5V2 inches square and the walls are 18 inches thick. The monument is made of blocks of marble two feet thick, and it is said there are over 18,000 of them. The height above the ground is 555 feet. The pyramidal top terminates in an alumi- num tip, which is 9 inches high and weighs 100 ounces. The mean pressure of the monument is 5 tons per square foot, and the total weight, foundation and all, is nearly 81,000 tons. The door at the base, facing the capitol, is 8 feet wide and 16 feet high, and enters a room 25 feet square. An immense iron frame- work supports the machinery of the ele- vator, which is hoisted with steel wire ropes two inches thick. At one side be- gin the stairs, of which there are 50 flights, containing 18 steps each. Five hundred and twenty feet from the base there are eight windows, 18x24 inches, two on each face. The area at the base of the pyramidal top is 1,187% feet, space enough for a six-room house, each room to be 12x16 feet. The Cologne Cathedral is 525 feet high; the pyramid of Cheops, 486; Strassburg Cathedral, 474; St. Peter's at Rome, 448; the capi- tol at Washington, 306, and Bunker Hill monument, 221 feet. The Washington monument is the highest monument in the world; total cost, $1,187,710.31. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, a co- educational non-sectarian institution in St. LouiS; Mo.; incorporated in 1853. It has been formed by the union of six schools started at different times: the undergraduate department, which in- cludes the college (1859) ; the St. Louis Law School (1867) ; the O 'Fallon Poly- technic School (1870) ; the Henry Shaw School of Botany (1886) ; the School of Fine Arts; the St. Louis Medical Col-> lege (1891); and the Missouri Dental College (1892). To the university have been attached three secondary schools: The Smith Academy for boys (1854) ; the Mary Institute for girls (1859) ; and the manual training school (1879). It reported at the close of 1919: Professors and instructors, 200; students, 1,367; president, F. A. Hall, LL. D. WASHITA, or OUACHITA, a river of the United States and an affluent of Red river; flows in a S. E. direction through Arkansas and Louisiana, drain- ing a rich cotton and corn country for a distance of 600 miles. It receives the Saline, La Fourche, Tensas, and Little Missouri rivers, and is navigable throughout the year by steamboats to Camden, a distance of 300 miles. The False Washita traverses the Indian Ter- ritory, and joins the Red river above Preston, in Texas. WASP, any species of the genus Vespa or of the family Vespidse, par- ticularly the common wasp, V. vulgaris. It lives in a hole in the ground, gen- erally about six inches beneath the sur- face, approached by a crooked entrance of about an inch in diameter. This pas- sage leads to a subterranean room, in which is the vespiary made of gray COMMON WASP paper or pasteboard in layers one above the other, and constituting a ball of 13 or 14 inches in diameter, and pierced with two round holes, through which the wasps come in and go out. The interior is occupied by horizontal tiers of combs, like floors in a house, supported by columns, and with passages between. Each cell is hexagonal, as in the combs of bees, but the material is paper. These tiers of cells are built in succession, the upper ones first. Sexually wasps are of three kinds, males, females, and neuters.