The District of Kolar has an area of 3180 sq. m. It occupies the portion of the Mysore table-land immediately bordering the Eastern Ghats. The principal watershed lies in the north-west, around the hill of Nandidrug (4810 ft.), from which rivers radiate in all directions; and the whole country is broken by numerous hill ranges. The chief rivers are the Palar, the South Pinakini or Pennar, the North Pinakini, and the Papagani, which are industriously utilized for irrigation by means of anicuts and tanks. The rocks of the district are mostly syenite or granite, with a small admixture of mica and feldspar. The soil in the valleys consists of a fertile loam; and in the higher levels sand and gravel are found. The hills are covered with scrub, jungle and brushwood. In 1901 the population was 723,600, showing an increase of 22% in the decade. The district is traversed by the Bangalore line of the Madras railway, with a branch 10 m. long, known as the Kolar Goldfields railway. Gold prospecting in this region began in 1876, and the industry is now settled on a secure basis. Here are situated the mines of the Mysore, Champion Reef, Ooregum, and Nandidrug companies. To the end of 1904 the total value of gold produced was 21 millions sterling, and there had been paid in dividends 9 millions, and in royalty to the Mysore state one million. The municipality called the Kolar Gold Fields had in 1901 a population of 38,204; it has suffered severely from plague. Electricity from the falls of the Cauvery (93 m. distant) is utilized as the motive power in the mines. Sugar manufacture and silk and cotton weaving are the other principal industries in the district. The chief historical interest of modern times centres round the hill fort of Nandidrug, which was stormed by the British in 1791, after a bombardment of 21 days.
KOLBE, ADOLPHE WILHELM HERMANN (1818–1884), German chemist, was born on the 27th of September 1818 at
Elliehausen, near Göttingen, where in 1838 he began to study chemistry under F. Wöhler. In 1842 he became assistant to R. W. von Bunsen at Marburg, and three years later to Lyon Playfair at London. From 1847 to 1851 he was engaged at Brunswick in editing the Dictionary of Chemistry started by Liebig, but in the latter year he went to Marburg as successor to Bunsen in the chair of chemistry. In 1865 he was called to
Leipzig in the same capacity, and he died in that city on the 25th of November 1884. Kolbe had an important share in the great development of chemical theory that occurred about
the middle of the 19th century, especially in regard to the constitution
of organic compounds, which he viewed as derivatives
of inorganic ones, formed from the latter—in some cases directly—by
simple processes of substitution. Unable to accept
Berzelius’s doctrine of the unalterability of organic radicals,
he also gave a new interpretation to the meaning of copulae
under the influence of his fellow-worker Edward Frankland’s
conception of definite atomic saturation-capacities, and thus
contributed in an important degree to the subsequent establishment
of the structure theory. Kolbe was a very successful
teacher, a ready and vigorous writer, and a brilliant experimentalist
whose work revealed the nature of many compounds
the composition of which had not previously been understood.
He published a Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie in 1854, smaller
textbooks of organic and inorganic chemistry in 1877–1883, and
Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der theoretischen Chemie in 1881.
From 1870 he was editor of the Journal für praktische Chemie,
in which many trenchant criticisms of contemporary chemists
and their doctrines appeared from his pen.
KOLBERG (or Colberg), a town of Germany, and seaport
of the Prussian province of Pomerania, on the right bank of
the Persante, which falls into the Baltic about a mile below
the town, and at the junction of the railway lines to Belgard
and Gollnow. Pop. (1905), 22,804. It has a handsome market-place
with a statue of Frederick William III.; and there are
extensive suburbs, of which the most important is Münde.
The principal buildings are the huge red-brick church of St
Mary, with five aisles, one of the most remarkable churches in
Pomerania, dating from the 14th century; the council-house
(Rathaus), erected after the plans of Ernst F. Zwirner; and the
citadel. Kolberg also possesses four other churches, a theatre,
a gymnasium, a school of navigation, and an exchange. Its
bathing establishments are largely frequented and attract a
considerable number of summer visitors. It has a harbour at
the mouth of the Persante, where there is a lighthouse. Woollen
cloth, machinery and spirits are manufactured; there is an
extensive salt-mine in the neighbouring Zillenberg; the salmon
and lamprey fisheries are important; and a fair amount of
commercial activity is maintained. In 1903 a monument was
erected to the memory of Gneisenau and the patriot, Joachim
Christian Nettelbeck (1738–1824), through whose efforts the
town was saved from the French in 1806–7.
Originally a Slavonic fort, Kolberg is one of the oldest places of Pomerania. At an early date it became the seat of a bishop, and although it soon lost this distinction it obtained municipal privileges in 1255. From about 1276 it ranked as the most important place in the episcopal principality of Kamin, and from 1284 it was a member of the Hanseatic League. During the Thirty Years’ War it was captured by the Swedes in 1631, passing by the treaty of Westphalia to the elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William I., who strengthened its fortifications. The town was a centre of conflict during the Seven Years’ War. In 1758 and again in 1760 the Russians besieged Kolberg in vain, but in 1762 they succeeded in capturing it. Soon restored to Brandenburg, it was vigorously attacked by the French in 1806 and 1807, but it was saved by the long resistance of its inhabitants. In 1887 the fortifications of the town were razed, and it has since become a fashionable watering-place, receiving annually nearly 15,000 visitors.
See Riemann, Geschichte der Stadt Kolberg (Kolberg, 1873); Stoewer, Geschichte der Stadt Kolberg (Kolberg, 1897); Schönlein, Geschichte der Belagerungen Kolbergs in den Jahren 1758, 1760, 1761 und 1807 (Kolberg, 1878); and Kempin, Führer durch Bad Kolberg (Kolberg, 1899).
KÖLCSEY, FERENCZ (1790–1838), Hungarian poet, critic and
orator, was born at Szodemeter, in Transylvania, on the 8th of
August 1790. In his fifteenth year he made the acquaintance of
Kazinczy and zealously adopted his linguistic reforms. In 1809
Kölcsey went to Pest and became a “notary to the royal board.”
Law proved distasteful, and at Cseke in Szatmár county he
devoted his time to aesthetical study, poetry, criticism, and the
defence of the theories of Kazinczy. Kölcsey’s early metrical
pieces contributed to the Transylvanian Museum did not attract
much attention, whilst his severe criticisms of Csokonai, Kis,
and especially Berzsenyi, published in 1817, rendered him very
unpopular. From 1821 to 1826 he published many separate
poems of great beauty in the Aurora, Hebe, Aspasia, and other
magazines of polite literature. He joined Paul Szemere in a new
periodical, styled Élet és literatura (“Life and Literature”),
which appeared from 1826 to 1829, in 4 vols., and gained for
Kölcsey the highest reputation as a critical writer. From 1832
to 1835 he sat in the Hungarian Diet, where his extreme liberal
views and his singular eloquence soon rendered him famous as a
parliamentary leader. Elected on the 17th of November 1830
a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, he took
part in its first grand meeting; in 1832, he delivered his
famous oration on Kazinczy, and in 1836 that on his former
opponent Daniel Berzsenyi. When in 1838 Baron Wesselényi
was unjustly thrown into prison upon a charge of treason,
Kölcsey eloquently though unsuccessfully conducted his defence;
and he died about a week afterwards (August 24) from internal
inflammation. His collected works, in 6 vols., were published
at Pest, 1840–1848, and his journal of the diet of 1832–1836
appeared in 1848. A monument erected to the memory of
Kölcsey was unveiled at Szatmár-Németi on the 25th of
September 1864.
See G. Steinacker, Ungarische Lyriker (Leipzig, and Pest, 1874); F. Toldy, Magyar Költök élete (2 vols., Pest, 1871); J. Ferenczy and J. Danielik, Magyar Irók (2 vols., Pest, 1856–1858).
KOLDING, a town of Denmark in the amt (county) of Vejle, on the east coast of Jutland, on the Koldingfjord, an inlet of the
