Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/821

O L G O L I 761 is at one point less than a mile. The greater part of the island is very fertile, but there are also some extensive salt marshes, from which a considerable quantity of salt is made. The chief products are corn, wine, fruit, and vege tables. The population of the island, which is mostly Protestant and supplies excellent sailors, numbered 18,244 in 1881 ; that of the chief town, Chateau d Oleron, on the south-east coast, was 1727. Other towns are Saint- Georges d Oleron (4943) and Saint-Pierre d Oleron (1535). Oleron, the Uliarus Insula of Pliny, gave its name to a mediaeval code of maritime laws, for the origin and history of which see SEA LAWS. OLGA, wife of Igor, prince of Kieff, and afterwards (from 945) regent for Sviatoslaf her son, was baptized at Constantinople about 955 and died about 969. She was afterwards canonized in the Russian church, and is now commemorated on llth July. See RUSSIA. OLIVA, FERNAN PEREZ DE, Spanish man of letters, one of the earliest writers of didactic prose in that language, was born at Cordova about 1492, and, after studying at Salamanca, Alcala, Paris, and Rome, was appointed to the chair of moral philosophy at Salamanca, where he died in 1530. His principal work, a Dialogue on the Dignity of Man, which he did not live to complete, was finished by Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, and published in 1546. His metrical translations from Euripides and Plautus are unimportant. OLIVARES, GASPARO DE GUZMAN, CONDE DUQUE DE (1587-1645), Spanish statesman, was born at Rome on 6th January 1587, where his father, Count Enrique, who after wards became viceroy successively of Sicily and Naples, was at the time ambassador to Pope Sixtus V. His grandfather, Count Pedro (1502-1562), had been a prominent figure at the courts both of Charles V. and of Philip II. After studying at Salamanca Olivares received, through the in fluence of his uncle the duke of Uceda, the appointment of gentleman of the bedchamber to the prince of Asturias. By his winning manners and valued, if not always very creditable, services he so ingratiated himself with the heir- apparent that the latter, on his accession as Philip IV. in 1621, forthwith made him his prime minister, conferring on him the title of Duque de San Lucar de Barrameda. It was the ambition of Olivares to regain for his country by arms and intrigue the influence it had formerly possessed in Europe, but his abilities, great as they were, were very un equally matched with those of Richelieu, his rival in policy, and twenty -two years of almost autocratic power accord ingly had no other result than deep national humiliation as well as personal disgrace (see SPAIN). The expedients to which he was compelled to resort in order to raise money for his long and unsuccessful war with the Dutch and for the support of his armies in Germany and Italy raised throughout the Spanish peninsula a spirit of discontent, which came to a crisis in 1640, when Catalonia rebelled, calling in the aid of the French, and Portugal declared its independence, electing the duke of Braganza as king. All his attempts at pacification having failed, the enemies of Olivares succeeded in supplanting him in the king s favour in 1643. He was banished to Toro (Zamora) where he died in 1645. See De la Rocca, Hist, du ministere du Comte-duc d Olivares (Cologne, 1673). OLIVE (Olea eurojj&a), the well-known plant that yields the olive oil of commerce, belongs to a section of the natural order Oleaceas, of which it has been taken as the type. The genus Olea includes about thirty-five species, very widely scattered, chiefly over the Old World, from the basin of the Mediterranean to South Africa and New Zealand. The wild olive, or oleaster, is a small tree or bush of rather straggling growth, with thorny branches and opposite oblong pointed leaves, dark greyish -green above and, in the young state, hoary beneath with whitish scales ; the small white flowers, with four-cleft calyx and corolla, two stamens, and bifid stigma, are borne on the last year s wood, in racemes springing from the axils of the leaves ; the drupaceous fruit is small in the wild plant, and the fleshy pericarp, which gives the garden olive its economic value, is hard and comparatively thin. In the cultivated forms the tree acquires a more compact habit, the branches lose their spinous character, while the young- shoots become more or less angular ; the leaves are always hoary on the under-side, and are generally lanceolate in shape, though varying much in breadth and size in the different kinds. The fruit is subject to still greater altera tions of form and colour ; usually oval or nearly globular, in some sorts it is egg-shaped, in others much elongated ; while the dark hue that it commonly assumes when ripe is exchanged in many varieties for violet, green, or al most white. At pre sent the wild olive is found in most of the countries around the Medi terranean, extend ing its range on the west to Portugal, and eastward to the vicinity of the Cas pian, while, locally, it occurs even in Afghanistan. An undoubted native of Syria and the mari time parts of Asia -. r . , , A, Olea eiiropxa (from nature). B, opened flower; Minor, Its a bund- C, vertical section (after Luerssen, Med.-Pharm. ance in Greece and otcmik > 1882 >- the islands of the Archipelago, and the frequent allusions to it by the earliest poets, seem to indicate that it was there also indigenous ; but in localities remote from the Levant it may have escaped from cultivation, reverting more or less to its primitive type. It shows a marked preference for calcareous soils and a partiality for the sea-breeze, flourishing with especial luxuriance on the limestone slopes and crags that often form the shores of the Greek peninsula and adjacent islands. The varieties of olive known to the modern cultivator are extremely numerous, according to some authorities, equalling or exceeding in number those of the vine. In France and Italy at least thirty kinds have been enumer ated, but comparatively few are grown to any large extent. None of these can be safely identified with ancient descrip tions, though it is not unlikely that some of the narrow- leaved sorts that are most esteemed may be descendants of the famed " Licinian " (see below). Italy retains its old pre-eminence in olive cultivation and, though its ancient Gallic province now excels it in the production of the finer oils, its fast-improving culture may restore the old prestige. The broad-leaved olive trees of Spain bear a larger fruit, but the pericarp is of more bitter flavour and the oil of ranker quality. The olive tree, even when free increase is unchecked by pruning, is of very slow growth ; but, where allowed for ages its natural development, the trunk sometimes attains a considerable diameter. De Candolle records one exceeding 23 feet in girth, the age being sup posed to amount to seven centuries. Some old Italian olives have been credited with an antiquity reaching back XVII. 96