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IONIA IONIAN ISLANDS 329 and potatoes, but the chief occupation of the inhabitants is rearing black cattle and fish- ing. There is a small village, containing two churches, 40 or 50 detached cottages, and a school. The island was given by the Pictish king Bridius in 563 to St. Oolumba (hence the name Icolmkill, the island of Oolumba of the cell), who founded there a celebrated monas- tery. Previous to his time the island was the chief seat of the rites of druidism. He estab- lished a college, which acquired great wealth and increased in influence till the time of the reformation. The Ouldees controlled it until the beginning of the 13th century, when they were driven out by those who acknowledged the authority of Rome. A nunnery established on the island about this time continued till 1543, when Anna Macdonald, the last prioress, died. The religious establishment was alto- gether broken up by the act of the Scotch par- liament (1560) abolishing all religious houses. The island then passed into the hands of the McLeans, but is now the property of the duke of Argyll. lona is said to have had at one time 360 stone crosses, resembling those of Ireland, but most of them were destroyed by Puritan zeal, and only four now remain. Se- pulchral remains cover the island, both in the shape of cairns and of stone monuments of all kinds, lona having been considered from time immemorial a sacred island. An old prophecy declared that seven years before the end of the world a second deluge would drown all na- tions, but that St. Columba's isle would swim above the flood ; and this tradition made it the chosen cemetery of kings. Numbers of Scotch, Irish, Norwegian, and even French kings were buried there, the last of' whom is said to have been the famous Macbeth. Among the principal ruins are the church of St. Mary, a cruciform building with a square tower about 75 ft. high, dating from the beginning of the 13th century; St. Mary's nunnery, built in the 12th; and St. Oran's chapel, probably in the llth. IONIA, in ancient geography, a country on the W. coast of Asia Minor, lying mainly be- tween the river Hermus on the north and the MoMinder on the south, and including the islands of Chios and Samos. This district was named after the lonians, who returned from Attica to these shores, from which they had previously emigrated to European Greece, and founded here the 12 cities, Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Lebedus, Colophon, Teos, Erythrro, Clazomense, Phocaia, Chios, and Samos, which were designated as the Ionian Dodecapolis. (See IONIANS. ) The new colonists settled among kindred Greek tribes engaged in fishing and navigation, and the Lydians seem to have allowed their settlements on the coast without regarding them as an encroachment. The lonians demanded rights of supremacy and the best localities for the foundation of cities for themselves, and drove the old inhabitants out of their seats. The legends speak of their struggles with the Carians and Leleges. The religious and political centre of the Dodecapo- lis was the Panibnium, which was a temple of Neptune, on the N. slope of Mount Mycale, near Priene, where the common affairs of the independent republics were discussed at regu- lar meetings. About 700 B. C. Smyrna, which until then had belonged to yEolis, became by treachery a member of the Ionian confederacy, which subsequently consisted of 13 cities. Tho country soon attained great prosperity. Be- fore the middle of the 6th century, however, the Ionian cities became subject to Lydia, and on the fall of Croesus they were annexed to the Persian empire by Cyrus. In 501 and 494 the lonians made unsuccessful efforts to regain their independence, and they assisted the Greeks against the Persians at the battle of Mycale (479). The Persian yoke was at length shaken off by the victory at the Eury- medon, but the peace of Antalcidas (387) re- newed it. On the overthrow of the Persian empire by Alexander, Ionia became subject to Macedon, subsequently to the Syrian and Per- gamene kingdoms; and in 133 it fell into the hands of the Romans by the bequest of Atta- lus III. of Pergamus. The Ionian cities soon lost their importance, and under the Turkish supremacy all but Smyrna disappeared or sank into total insignificance. Though Ionia never possessed great political power, the commerce of its cities extended to the shores of the Black sea and the sea of Azov, as well as to the coasts of the Mediterranean. Ionia was the cradle of Greek epic and elegiac poetry, history, phi- losophy, medicine, and other sciences ; it devel- oped a new style of architecture, and it was the birthplace of several celebrated painters. IONIA, a S. county of the southern peninsula of Michigan, drained by Grand river ; area, 576 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 27,681. It has an undu- lating surface, about half of which is densely wooded. Red sandstone is quarried. The soil is rich, and much of it alluvial. The Detroit and Milwaukee, and the Detroit, Lansing, and Lake Michigan railroads pass through it. The chief productions in 1870 were 665,521 bushels of wheat, 366,811 of Indian corn, 284,314 of oats, 316,487 of potatoes, 32,825 Ibs. of hops, 120,870 of maple sugar, 317,261 of wool, 656,- 369 of butter, and 34,271 tons of hay. There were 6,514 horses, 7,424 milch cows, 1,844 working oxen, 8,093 other cattle, 78,541 sheep, and 10,686 swine; 12 manufactories of agri- cultural implements, 10 of carriages, 6 of cabi- net furniture, 10 of iron castings, 8 of saddlery and harness, 9 of sash, doors, and blinds, 3 of woollen goods, 2 planing mills, 19 saw mills, and 9 flour mills. Capital, Ionia. IONIAN ISLANDS, the collective name of seven islands belonging to Greece, six of which are in the Ionian sea (a name applied from ancient times to the part of the Mediterranean be- tween the W. coast of Greece and the E. coast of Italy and Sicily), viz. : Corfu, Santa Maura, Ithaca or Thiaki, Cephalonia, Zante, Paxo, and Cerigo, with some smaller dependencies,