KEEL, the bottom timber or combination of plates of a ship or boat, extending longitudinally from bow to stern, and supporting the framework (see Ship-building). The origin of the word has been obscured by confusion of two words, the Old Norwegian kjole (cf. Swedish köl) and a Dutch and German kiel. The first had the meaning of the English “keel,” the other of ship, boat. The modern usage in Dutch and German has approximated to the English. The word kiel is represented in old English by céol, a word applied to the long war galleys of the Vikings, in which sense “keel” or “keele” is still used by archaeologists. On the Tyne “keel” is the name given to a flat-bottomed vessel used to carry coals to the colliers. There is another word “keel,” meaning to cool, familiar in Shakespeare (Love’s Labour Lost, v. ii. 930), “while greasy Joan doth keel the pot,” i.e. prevents a pot from boiling over by pouring in cold water, &c., stirring or skimming. This is from the Old English célan, to cool, a common Teutonic word, cf. German kühlen.
KEELEY, MARY ANNE (1806–1899), English actress, was born
at Ipswich on the 22nd of November 1805 or 1806. Her maiden
name was Goward, her father being a brazier and tinman. After
some experience in the provinces, she first appeared on the stage
in London on the 2nd of July 1825, in the opera Rosina. It was
not long before she gave up “singing parts” in favour of the
drama proper, where her powers of character-acting could have
scope. In June 1829 she married Robert Keeley (1793–1869),
an admirable comedian, with whom she had often appeared.
Between 1832 and 1842 they acted at Covent Garden, at the
Adelphi with Buckstone, at the Olympic with Charles Mathews,
and at Drury Lane with Macready. In 1836 they visited America.
In 1838 she made her first great success as Nydia, the blind girl,
in a dramatized version of Bulwer Lytton’s The Last Days of
Pompeii, and followed this with an equally striking impersonation
of Smike in Nicholas Nickleby. In 1839 came her decisive
triumph with her picturesque and spirited acting as the hero of a
play founded upon Harrison Ainsworth’s Jack Sheppard. So
dangerous was considered the popularity of the play, with its
glorification of the prison-breaking felon, that the lord chamberlain
ultimately forbade the performance of any piece upon the
subject. It is perhaps mainly as Jack Sheppard that Mrs Keeley
lived in the memory of playgoers, despite her long subsequent
career in plays more worthy of her remarkable gifts. Under
Macready’s management she played Nerissa in The Merchant
of Venice, and Audrey in As You Like It. She managed the
Lyceum with her husband from 1844 to 1847; acted with Webster
and Kean at the Haymarket; returned for five years to the
Adelphi; and made her last regular public appearance at the
Lyceum in 1859. A public reception was given her at this
theatre on her 90th birthday. She died on the 12th of March
1899.
See Walter Goodman, The Keeleys on the Stage and off (London, 1895).
KEELING ISLANDS (often called Cocos and Cocos-Keeling
Islands), a group of coral islands in the Indian Ocean, between
12° 4′ and 12° 13′ S., and 96° 49′–57′ E., but including a smaller
island in 11° 50′ N. and 96° 50′ E. The group furnished Charles
Darwin with the typical example of an atoll or lagoon island.
There are altogether twenty-three small islands, 912 m. being the
greatest width of the whole atoll. The lagoon is very shallow
and the passages between many of the islands are fordable on
foot. An opening on the northern side of the reef permits the
entrance of vessels into the northern part of the lagoon, which
forms a good harbour known as Port Refuge or Port Albion. The
coco-nut (as the name Cocos Islands indicates) is the characteristic
product and is cultivated on all the islands. The flora is
scanty in species. One of the commonest living creatures is a
monstrous crab which lives on the coco-nuts; and in some places
also there are great colonies of the pomegranate crab. The group
was visited by Dr H. O. Forbes in 1878, and later, at the expense
of Sir John Murray, by Dr Guppy, Mr Ridley and Dr Andrews.
The object of their visits was the investigation of the fauna and
flora of the atoll, more especially of the formation of the coral
reefs. Dr Guppy was fortunate in reaching North Keeling Island,
where a landing is only possible during the calmest weather.
The island he found to be about a mile long, with a shallow
enclosed lagoon, less than 3 ft. deep at ordinary low water, with
a single opening on its east or weather side. A dense vegetation
of iron-wood (Cordia) and other trees and shrubs, together with
a forest of coco-nut palms, covers its surface. It is tenanted by
myriads of sea-fowl, frigate-birds, boobies, and terns (Gygis
candida), which find here an excellent nesting-place, for the
island is uninhabited, and is visited only once or twice a year.
The excrement from this large colony has changed the carbonate
of lime in the soil and the coral nodules on the surface into
phosphates, to the extent in some cases of 60–70%, thus forming
a valuable deposit, beneficial to the vegetation of the island
itself and promising commercial value. The lagoon is slowly
filling up and becoming cultivable land, but the rate of recovery
from the sea has been specially marked since the eruption of
Krakatoa, the pumice from which was washed on to it in
enormous quantity, so that the lagoon advanced its shores
from 20 to 30 yards. Forbes’s and Guppy’s investigations go
to show that, contrary to Darwin’s belief, there is no evidence
of upheaval or of subsidence in either of the Keeling groups.
The atoll has an exceedingly healthy climate, and might well be used as a sanatorium for phthisical patients, the temperature never reaching extremes. The highest annual reading of the thermometer hardly ever exceeds 89° F. or falls beneath 70°. The mean temperature for the year is 78.5° F., and as the rainfall rarely exceeds 40 in. the atmosphere never becomes unpleasantly moist. The south-east trade blows almost ceaselessly for ten months of the year. Terrific storms sometimes break over the island; and it has been more than once visited by earthquakes. A profitable trade is done in coco-nuts, but there are few other exports. The imports are almost entirely foodstuffs and other necessaries for the inhabitants, who form a patriarchal colony under a private proprietor.
The islands were discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling on his voyage from Batavia to the Cape. In 1823 Alexander Hare, an English adventurer, settled on the southernmost island with a number of slaves. Some two or three years after, a Scotchman, J. Ross, who had commanded a brig during the English occupation of Java, settled with his family (who continued in the ownership) on Direction Island, and his little colony was soon strengthened by Hare’s runaway slaves. The Dutch Government had in an informal way claimed the possession of the islands since 1829; but they refused to allow Ross to hoist the Dutch flag, and accordingly the group was taken under British protection in 1856. In 1878 it was attached to the government of Ceylon, and in 1882 placed under the authority of the governor of the Straits Settlements. The ownership and superintendency continued in the Ross family, of whom George Clunies Ross died in 1910, and was succeeded by his son Sydney.
See C. Darwin, Journal of the Voyage of the “Beagle,” and Geological Observations on Coral Reefs; also Henry O. Forbes, A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago (London, 1884); H. B. Guppy, “The Cocos-Keeling Islands,” Scottish Geographical Magazine (vol. v., 1889).
KEEL-MOULDING, in architecture, a round on which there is
a small fillet, somewhat like the keel of a ship. It is common in
the Early English and Decorated styles.
KEENE, CHARLES SAMUEL (1823–1891), English black-and-white
artist, the son of Samuel Browne Keene, a solicitor, was
born at Hornsey on the 10th of August 1823. Educated at the
Ipswich Grammar School until his sixteenth year, he early showed
artistic leanings. Two years after the death of his father he was
articled to a London solicitor, but, the occupation proving uncongenial,
he was removed to the office of an architect, Mr Pilkington.
His spare time was now spent in drawing historical and
nautical subjects in water-colour. For these trifles his mother,
to whose energy and common sense he was greatly indebted, soon
found a purchaser, through whom he was brought to the notice
of the Whympers, the wood-engravers. This led to his being
bound to them as apprentice for five years. His earliest known
