and courage, to the second; while the liver, once the master of the entire domain of soul-life as understood in antiquity, was degraded to serve as the seat of the lower emotions, such as jealousy, anger and the like. This is substantially the view set forth in the Timaeus of Plato (§ 71 c). The addition of the heart to the liver as an organ of the revelation of the divine will, reflects the stage which assigned to the heart the position once occupied by the liver. By the time the third stage, which placed the seat of soul-life in the brain, was reached through the further advance of anatomical knowledge, the religious rites of Greece and Rome were too deeply incrusted to admit of further radical changes, and faith in the gods had already declined too far to bring new elements into the religion. In phrenology, however, as popularly carried on as an unofficial cult, we may recognize a modified form of divination, co-ordinate with the third stage in the development of beliefs regarding the seat of soul and based on the assumption that this organ is—as were its predecessors—a medium of revelation of otherwise hidden knowledge. (M. Ja.)
OMICHUND (d. 1767), an Indian whose name is indelibly associated with the treaty negotiated by Clive before the battle of Plassey in 1757. His real name was Amir Chand; and he was not a Bengali, as stated by Macaulay, but a Sikh from the Punjab. It is impossible now to unravel the intrigues in which he may have engaged, but some facts about his career can be stated. He had long been resident at Calcutta, where he had acquired a large fortune by providing the “investment” for the Company, and also by acting as intermediary between the English and the native court at Murshidabad. In a letter of Mr Watts of later date he is represented as saying to the nawab (Suraj-ud-daula): “He had lived under the English protection these forty years; that he never knew them once to break their agreement, to the truth of which he took his oath by touching a Brahman's foot; and that if a lie could be proved in England upon any one, they were spit upon and never trusted.” Several houses owned by him in Calcutta are mentioned in connexion with the fighting that preceded the tragedy of the Black Hole in 1756, and it is on record that he suffered heavy losses at that time. He had been arrested by the English on suspicion of treachery, but afterwards he was forward in giving help to the fugitives and also valuable advice. On the recapture of Calcutta he was sent by Clive to accompany Mr Watts as agent at Murshidabad. It seems to have been through his influence that the nawab gave reluctant consent to Clive's attack on Chandernagore. Later, when the treaty with Mir Jafar was being negotiated, he put in a claim for 5% on all the treasure to be recovered, under threat of disclosing the plot. To defeat him, two copies of the treaty were drawn up: the one, the true treaty, omitting his claim; the other containing it, to be shown to him, which Admiral Watson refused to sign, but Clive directed the admiral's signature to be appended. When the truth was revealed to Omichund after Plassey, Macaulay states (following Orme) that he sank gradually into idiocy, languished a few months, and then died. As a matter of fact, he survived for ten years, till 1767; and by his will he bequeathed £2000 to the Foundling Hospital (where his name may be seen in the list of benefactors as “a black merchant of Calcutta”) and also to the Magdalen Hospital in London.
OMNIBUS (Lat. “for all”), a large closed public conveyance with seats for passengers inside and out (see Carriage). The name, colloquially shortened to “bus,” was, in the form voiture omnibus, first used for such conveyances in Paris in 1828, and was taken by Shillibeer for the vehicle he ran on the Paddington road in 1829. The word is also applied to a box at the opera which is shared by several subscribers, to a bill or act of parliament dealing with a variety of subjects, and in electrical engineering to the bar to which the terminals of the generators are attached and from which the current is taken off by the wires supplying the various consumers.
OMRI, in the Bible, the first great king of Israel after the separation of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, who flourished in the early part of the 9th century B.C. The dynasty of Jeroboam had been exterminated by Baasha (see Asa) at a revolt when the army was besieging the Philistines at Gibbethon, an unidentified Danite site. A quarter of a century later, Baasha's son Elah, after a reign of two years, was slain by Zimri, captain of the chariots, in a drinking bout, and again the royal family were put to the sword. Meanwhile, the general Omri, who was at Gibbethon, was promptly elected king by the army, and Zimri himself in a short while[1] met his death in the royal city of Tirzah. However, fresh disturbance was caused by Tibni ben Ginath (perhaps of Naphtali), and Israel was divided into rival factions. Ultimately Tibni and his brother Joram (1 Kings xvi. 22, LXX.) were overcome, and Omri remained in sole possession of the throne. The compiler of the biblical narratives takes little interest in Omri's work (1 Kings xvi. 15-28), and records briefly his purchase of Samaria, which became the capital of his dynasty (see Samaria). The inscription of Mesha throws welcome light upon his conquest of Moab (q.v.); the position of Israel during the reign of Omri's son Ahab (q.v.) bears testimony to the success of the father; and the fact that the land continued to be known to the Assyrians down to the time of Sargon as “house of Omri” indicates the reputation which this little-known king enjoyed.
- (S. A. C.)
OMSK, a town of Russia, capital of the province of Akmolinsk, capital of western Siberia from 1839 to 1882, and now capital of the general-governorship of the Steppes. Pop. (1881) 31,000, (1900) 53,050. It is the seat of administration of the Siberian Cossacks, and the see of the bishop of Omsk. Situated on the right bank of the Irtysh, at its confluence with the Om, at an altitude of 285 ft., and on the Siberian railway, 1862 m. via Chelyabinsk from Moscow, and 586 m. W.S.W. of Tomsk, it is the meeting-place of the highways to middle Russia, Orenburg and Turkestan. Steamers ply down the Irtysh and the Ob, and up the former to the Altai towns and Lake Zaisan. The climate is dry and relatively temperate, but marked by violent snow-storms and sand-storms. The average temperatures are, for the year, 31° F.; for January, 5°; for July, 68°; the annual rainfall is 12.4 in. The town is poorly built. Apart from the railway workshops, its industries are unimportant (steam sawmill, tanneries); but the trade, especially since the construction of the railway, is growing. There are two yearly fairs. Omsk has a society for education, which organizes schools, kindergartens, libraries and lectures for the people. There are a corps of cadets, medical, dramatic and musical societies, and the west Siberian section of the Russian Geographical Society, with a museum.
The “fort” of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the blockhouses on the Russian frontier, along the Ishim and the Irtysh. In consequence of the frequent incursions of the Kirghiz about the end of the 18th century, stronger earthworks were erected on the right bank of the Om; but these have now almost entirely disappeared.
ONAGRACEAE, in botany, an order of dicotyledons belonging to the series Myrtiflorae, to which belongs also the myrtle order, Myrtaceae. It contains about 36 genera and 300 species, and occurs chiefly in the temperate zone of the New World, especially on the Pacific side. It is represented in Britain by several species of Epilobium (willow-herb), Circaea (enchanter's nightshade), and Ludwigia, a small perennial herb very rare in boggy pools in Sussex and Hampshire. The plants are generally herbaceous, sometimes annual, as species of Epilobium, Clarkia, Godetia, or biennial, as Oenothera biennis—evening primrose—or sometimes become shrubby or arborescent, as Fuchsia (q.v.). The simple leaves are generally entire or inconspicuously toothed, and are alternate, opposite or whorled in arrangement; they are generally exstipulate, but small caducous stipules occur in Fuchsia, Circaea and other genera. The flowers are often solitary in the leaf-axils, as in many fuchsias, Clarkia, &c., or associated, as in Epilobium and Oenothera, in large showy terminal spikes or racemes; in Circaea the small white or red
- ↑ He is said to have reigned seven days, but the LXX. (B) in 1 Kings xvi. 15 read seven years. Further confusion is caused by the fact that the LXX. reads Zimri throughout for Omri.
