was estimated as numbering between 1500 and 1700. During the 18th century the tribe divided, part loyally supporting the Iroquois league, while part, having come under the influence of French missionaries, migrated to the Catholic Iroquois settlements in Canada. Of those who supported the league, the majority, after the War of Independence, settled on a reservation on Grand river, Ontario, where their descendants still are. About 500 are upon the Onondaga reservation in New York state.
For Onondaga cosmology see 21st Ann. Report Bureau Amer. Ethnol. (1899–1900).
ONOSANDER, or Onasander, Greek philosopher, lived during the 1st century A.D. He was the author of a commentary on the Republic of Plato, which is lost, but we still possess by him a short but comprehensive work (Στρατηγικός) on the duties of a general. It is dedicated to Quintus Veranius Nepos, consul 49, and legate of Britain. It was the chief authority for the military writings of the emperors Maurice and Leo, and Maurice of Saxony, who consulted it in a French translation, expressed a high opinion of it.
Edition by H. Köchly (1860); see also G. Rathgeber in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie.
ONSLOW, EARL OF, a title borne by an English family claiming descent from Roger, lord of Ondeslowe in the liberty of Shrewsbury in the 13th century. Richard Onslow (1528–1571), solicitor-general and then Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of Elizabeth, was grandfather of Sir Richard Onslow (1601–1664), who inherited the family estate on the death of his brother. Sir Thomas Onslow, in 1616. Sir Richard was a member of the Long Parliament, and during the great Rebellion was a colonel in the parliamentary army. He was a member of Cromwell’s parliament in 1654 and again in 1656, and was also a member of his House of Lords. His son. Sir Arthur Onslow (1621–1688), succeeded in 1687 by special remainder to the baronetcy of his father-in-law. Sir Thomas Foot, lord mayor of London. Sir Arthur’s son. Sir Richard (1654–1717), was Speaker of the House of Commons from 1708 to 17 10, and chancellor of the exchequer in 1715. In 1716 he was created Baron Onslow of Onslow and of Clandon. He was uncle of Arthur Onslow, the famous Speaker (see below), whose only son George became 4th Baron Onslow on the death of his kinsman Richard in October 1776. The 4th baron (1731–1814) had entered parliament in 1754, and was very active in the House of Commons; and in May 1776, just before he succeeded to the family barony, he was created Baron Cranley of Imbercourt. He was comptroller and then treasurer of the royal household, and was present at the marriage of the prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., with Mrs Fitzherbert in 1785. In 1801 he was created Viscount Cranley and earl of Onslow, and he died at his Surrey residence, Clandon Park, on the 17th of May 1814. The second earl was his eldest son Thomas (1754–1827), whose son Arthur George (1777–1870), the 3rd earl, died without surviving male issue in October 1870. He was succeeded by his grand-nephew, William Hillier, 4th earl of Onslow (b. 1853), who was governor of New Zealand from 1888 to 1892; under-secretary for India from 1895 to 1900; and under-secretary for the Colonies from 1900 to 1903. From 1903 to 1905 he was a member of the Conservative cabinet as president of the board of agriculture.
ONSLOW, ARTHUR (1691–1768), English politician, elder son
of Foot Onslow (d. 1710), was born at Chelsea on the 1st of October
1691. Educated at Winchester and at Wadham College, Oxford,
he became a barrister and in 1720 entered parliament as a member
for the borough of Guildford. Seven years later he became one of
the members for Surrey, and he retained this seat until 1761. In 1728 he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, being the third member of his family to hold this office; he was also chancellor to George II.’s queen, Caroline, and from 1734 to 1742 he was treasurer of the navy. He retired from the position of Speaker and from parliament in 1761, and enjoyed an annuity
of £3000 until his death on the 17th of February 1768. As
Speaker, Onslow was a conspicuous success, displaying knowledge,
tact and firmness in his office; in his leisure hours he was
a collector of books.
Speaker Onslow’s nephew, George Onslow (1731–1792), a son of his brother Richard, was a lieutenant-colonel and member of parliament for Guildford from 1760 to 1784. He had a younger brother Richard (1741–1817), who entered the navy and was made an admiral in 1799.
ONTARIO, a province of Canada, having the province of
Quebec to the E., the states of New York, Ohio, Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota to the S., Manitoba to the W., and
the district of Keewatin with James Bay to the N. In most
cases the actual boundary consists of rivers or lakes, the Ottawa
to the north-east, the St Lawrence and its chain of lakes and
rivers to the south as far as Pigeon river, which separates Ontario
from Minnesota. From this a canoe route over small rivers and
lakes leads to the Lake-of-the-Woods, which lies between
Ontario, Minnesota and Manitoba; and English and Albany
rivers with various lakes carry the boundary to James Bay.
From Lake Temiscaming northwards the boundary is the
meridian of 79° 30′.
Physical Geography.—Ontario extends 1000 m. from E. to W. and more than 700 m. from N. to S., between latitudes 55° and 42°, including the most southerly point in Canada. Its area is 260,862 sq. m. (40,354 water), and it is the most populous of the provinces, nine-tenths of its inhabitants living, however, in one-tenth of its area, between the Great Lakes, the Ottawa and the St Lawrence. This forms part of the plain of the St Lawrence, underlain by Palaeozoic limestones and shales, with some sandstone, all furnishing useful building material and working up into a good soil. The lowest part of the plain, including an area of 4500 sq. m. lying between elevations of 100 and 400 ft., was covered by the sea at the close of the Ice Age, which left behind broad deposits of clay and sand with marine shells.
The south-western part is naturally divided into two tracts by the Niagara escarpment, a line of cliffs capped by hard Silurian limestones, running from Queenston Heights near the falls of Niagara west to the head of Lake Ontario near Hamilton, and then north-west to the Bruce Peninsula on Georgian Bay. The tract north-east of the escarpment has an area of 9000 sq. m. and an altitude of 400 to 1000 ft., and the south-western tract includes 15,000 sq. ra. with an elevation of 600 to 1700 ft. In the last petroleum, natural gas, salt and gypsum are obtained, but elsewhere in southern Ontario no economic minerals except building materials are obtained. Covering the higher parts of the south-western Palaeozoic area in most places are rolling hills of boulder clay or stony moraines; while the lower levels are plains gently sloping toward the nearest of the Great Lakes and sheeted with silt deposited in more ancient lakes when the St Lawrence outlet was blocked with ice at the end of the glacial period. The old shore cliffs and gravel bars of these glacial lakes are still well-marked topographical features, and provide favourite sites for towns and cities. London, for example, is built on the old shore of Lake Warren, the highest of the extinct lakes; and St Catharines, Hamilton and Toronto are on the old shore of Lake Iroquois, the lowest. The Niagara escarpment mentioned above, generally called “the mountain” in Ontario, is the cause of waterfalls on all the rivers which plunge over it, Niagara Falls being, of course, the most important; and in most cases these falls have eaten their way back into the tableland, forming deep gorges or canyons like that below Niagara itself, through which the water pours as violent rapids. Between the Palaeozoic area near Ottawa, and Georgian Bay to the north of the region just referred to, there is a southward projection of the Archaean protaxis consisting of granite and gneiss of the Laurentian, enclosing bands of crystalline limestone and schists, which are of interest as furnishing the only mines of “Old Ontario.” From these rocks in the Ottawa valley are quarried or mined granite, marble, magnificent blue sodalite, felspar, talc, actinolite, mica, apatite, graphite and corundum; the latter mineral, which occurs on a larger scale here than elsewhere, is rapidly replacing emery as an abrasive. Several metals have been mined also, including gold, copper, lead, iron and arsenic; but the amounts produced have not been great, and many of the mines are no longer working.
While all the larger cities and most of the manufacturing and farming districts of the province belong to old Ontario, there is now in process of development a “New Ontario,” stretching for hundreds of miles to the north and north-west of the region just described and covering a far larger area, chiefly made up of Laurentian and Huronian rocks of the Archaean protaxis. The rocky hills of the tableland to the north long repelled settlement, the region being looked on by the thrifty farmers of the south as a wilderness useless except for its forests and its furs; and unfortunate settlers who ventured into it usually failed and went west or south in search of better land. Gradually, however, areas of good soil were opened
