found in different places, especially about Kulja, but the fairly rich copper ores and silver ores have ceased to be worked.
The chief towns are Suidun, capital of the province, and Kulja. The latter (Old Kulja) is on the Ili river. It is one of the chief cities of the region, owing to the importance of its bazaars, and is the seat of the Russian consul and a telegraph station. The walled town is nearly square, each side being about a mile in length; and the walls are not only 30 ft. high but broad enough on the top to serve as a carriage drive. Two broad streets cut the enclosed area into four nearly equal sections. Since 1870 a Russian suburb has been laid out on a wide scale. The houses of Kulja are almost all clay-built and flat-roofed, and except in the special Chinese quarter in the eastern end of the town only a few public buildings show the influence of Chinese architecture. Of these the most noteworthy are the Taranchi and Dungan mosques, both with turned-up roofs, and the latter with a pagoda-looking minaret. The population is mainly Mahommedan, and there are only two Buddhist pagodas. A small Chinese Roman Catholic church has maintained its existence through all the vicissitudes of modern times. Paper and vermicelli are manufactured with rude appliances in the town. The outskirts are richly cultivated with wheat, barley, lucerne and poppies. Schuyler estimated the population, which includes Taranchis, Dungans, Sarts, Chinese, Kalmucks and Russians, at 10,000 in 1873; it has since increased.
New Kulja, Manchu Kulja, or Ili, which lies lower down the valley on the same side of the stream, has been a pile of ruins since the terrible massacre of all its inhabitants by the insurgent Dungans in 1868. It was previously the seat of the Chinese government for the province, with a large penal establishment and strong garrison; its population was about 70,000.
History.—Two centuries B.C. the region was occupied by the fair and blue-eyed Ussuns, who were driven away in the 6th century of our era by the northern Huns. Later the Kulja territory became a dependency of Dzungaria. The Uighurs, and in the 12th century the Kara-Khitai, took possession of it in turn. Jenghiz Khan conquered Kulja in the 13th century, and the Mongol Khans resided in the valley of the Ili. It is supposed (Grum-Grzimailo) that the Oirads conquered it at the end of the 16th or the beginning of the 17th century; they kept it till 1755, when the Chinese annexed it. During the insurrection of 1864 the Dungans and the Taranchis formed here the Taranchi sultanate, and this led to the occupation of Kulja by the Russians in 1871. Ten years later the territory was restored to China.
KULM (Culm). (1) A town of Germany, in the province of
West Prussia, 33 m. by rail N.W. of Thorn, on an elevation
above the plain, and 1 m. E. of the Vistula. Pop. (1905),
11,665. It is surrounded by old walls, dating from the 13th
century, and contains some interesting buildings, notably its
churches, of which two are Roman Catholic and two Protestant,
and its medieval town-hall. The cadet school, founded here
in 1776 by Frederick the Great, was removed to Köslin
in 1890. There are large oil mills, also iron foundries and
machine shops, as well as an important trade in agricultural
produce, including fruit and vegetables. Kulm gives name
to the oldest bishopric in Prussia, although the bishop resides
at Pelplin. It was presented about 1220 by Duke Conrad of
Masovia to the bishop of Prussia. Frederick II. pledged it
in 1226 to the Teutonic order, to whom it owes its early development.
By the second peace of Thorn in 1466 it passed to
Poland, and it was annexed to Prussia in 1772. It joined
the Hanseatic League, and used to carry on very extensive
manufactures of cloth.
(2) A village of Bohemia about 3 m. N.E. of Teplitz, at the foot of the Erzgebirge, celebrated as the scene of a battle in which the French were defeated by the Austrians, Prussians and Russians on the 29th and 30th of August 1813 (see Napoleonic Campaigns).
KULMBACH, or Culmbach, a town of Germany, in the
Bavarian province of Upper Franconia, picturesquely situated
on the Weisser Main, and the Munich-Bamberg-Hof railway,
11 m. N.W. from Bayreuth. Pop. (1900), 9428. It contains
a Roman Catholic and three Protestant churches, a museum
and several schools. The town has several linen manufactories
and a large cotton spinnery, but is chiefly famed for its many
extensive breweries, which mainly produce a black beer, not
unlike English porter, which is largely exported. Connected
with these are malting and bottling works. On a rocky eminence,
1300 ft. in height, to the south-east of the town stands the former
fortress of Plassenburg, during the 14th and 15th centuries
the residence of the margraves of Bayreuth, called also margraves
of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. It was dismantled in 1807,
and is now used as a prison. Kulmbach and Plassenburg
belonged to the dukes of Meran, and then to the counts
of Orlamunde, from whom they passed in the 14th century
to the Hohenzollerns, burgraves of Nuremberg, and thus to the
margraves of Bayreuth.
See F. Stein, Kulmbach und die Plassenburg in alter und neuer Zeit (Kulmbach, 1903); Huther, Kulmbach und Umgebung (Kulmbach, 1886); and C. Meyer, Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Kulmbach (Munich, 1895).
KULMSEE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of West Prussia, on a lake, 14 m. by rail N. of Thorn and at the junction of railways to Bromberg and Marienburg. Pop. (1900), 8987. It has a fine Roman Catholic cathedral, which was built in the 13th, and restored in the 15th century, and an Evangelical church. Until 1823 the town was the seat of the bishops of Kulm.
KULP, a town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government
of Erivan, 60 m. W.S.W. from the town of Erivan and 2 m. S.
of the Aras river. Pop. (1897), 3074. Close by is the Kulp
salt mountain, about 1000 ft. high, consisting of beds of clay
intermingled with thick deposits of rock salt, which has been
worked from time immemorial. Regular galleries are cut in
the transparent, horizontal salt layers, from which cubes of
about 70 ℔ weight are extracted, to the amount of 27,500 tons
every year.
KULU, a subdivision of Kangra district, Punjab, British India,
which nominally includes the two Himalayan cantons or waziris
of Lahul and Spiti. The tahsil of Kulu has an area of 1054 sq. m.,
of which only 60 sq. m. are cultivated; pop. (1901), 68,954. The
Sainj, which joins the Beas at Largi, divides the tract into two
portions, Kulu proper and Soraj. Kulu proper, north of the
Sainj, together with inner Soraj, forms a great basin or depression
in the midst of the Himalayan system, having the narrow gorge
of the Beas at Largi as the only outlet for its waters. North and
east the Bara Bangahal and mid-Himalayan ranges rise to a
mean elevation of 18,000 ft., while southward the Jalori and
Dhaoladhar ridges attain a height of 11,000 ft. The higher
villages stand 9000 ft. above the sea; and even the cultivated
tracts have probably an average elevation of 5000 ft. The houses
consist of four-storeyed châlets in little groups, huddled closely
together on the ledges or slopes of the valleys, picturesquely built
with projecting eaves and carved wooden verandas. The Beas,
which, with its tributaries, drains the entire basin, rises at the
crest of the Rohtang pass, 13,326 ft. above the sea, and has an
average fall of 125 ft. per mile. Its course presents a succession
of magnificent scenery, including cataracts, gorges, precipitous
cliffs, and mountains clad with forests of deodar, towering above
the tiers of pine on the lower rocky ledges. It is crossed by
several suspension bridges. Great mineral wealth exists, but
the difficulty of transport and labour prevents its development.
Hot springs occur at three localities, much resorted to as places
of pilgrimage. The character of the hillmen resembles that of
most other mountaineers in its mixture of simplicity, independence
and superstition. Tibetan polyandry still prevails in Soraj,
but has almost died out elsewhere. The temples are dedicated
rather to local deities than to the greater gods of the Hindu
pantheon. Kulu is an ancient Rajput principality, which was
conquered by Ranjit Singh about 1812. Its hereditary ruler,
