Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/12

6 KING'S and somewhat romantic landscape, and it is one of the best agricultural counties of the province. Iron ore of fine quality is abun- dant. Coal exists, but has not yet been mined. Limestone and gypsum are plentiful, and there are many mineral springs. Capital, Hampton. II. A S. "W. county of Nova Scotia, Canada, situated on the bay of Fundy and Minas basin ; area, 812 sq. m.; pop. in 1871, 21,610, of whom 14,392 were of English, 3,755 of Irish, and 1,841 of Scotch descent. It is traversed by the Windsor and Annapolis railway. The coast line is broken and picturesque, but the borders of the rivers Annapolis, Gaspereaux, Cornwallis, Cunard, Habitant, and Pereau are flat, with large tracts of the richest alluvial deposits. The principal settlements are on those streams and on the route from Halifax to Annapolis. The Cornwallis river will admit steamers of light draft for upward of 20 miles. The soil is fertile, and the county contains iron ore, copper, silver, and slate. Capital, Kent- ville. III. The E. county of Prince Edward Island, Canada ; area, 644 sq. m. ; ^ pop. in 1871, 23,068. It is traversed by the Prince Edward Island railway. Its coasts are deeply indented by bays and inlets, and lined with settlements. There are also many villages in the interior. Capital, Georgetown. KING'S, an inland county of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, bordering on Westmeath, Meath, Kildare, Queen's, Tipperary, Galway, and Koscommon counties ; area, 770 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 75,781. On the south it is some- what broken by ramifications of the Slieve- bloom mountains, among the principal sum- mits of which are Arderin, 1,733 ft. high, and Carrol hill, 1,584 ft. The principal lakes are Loughs Fin, Boara, Annaghmore, and Pallas. The Shannon, Boyne, Barrow, and Brosna are the largest rivers. The soil is of average fer- tility, and agriculture is devoted to the usual corn crops. There are few minerals and no important manufactures. The chief towns are Parsonstown and Tullamore. KINGS, Books of, one of the chief divisions of the historical series of the canonical Scriptures. In their contents, if not entirely in style and arrangement, they are a continuation of the books of Samuel, as the latter are of that of Judges. The Hebrew Bible originally had only one book of Kings, which in the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and modern Hebrew editions is divided into two. Both versions give the title books of Kings also to the books of Samuel, and thus have four books of Kings. Com- mencing with the conclusion of the history of David, to which the second book of Samuel and much of the first are devoted, the books of Kings proper relate the history of the Hebrew state under Solomon and Rehoboam, of the divided state under the rival dynasties of Israel and Judah, and of the latter alone, after the captivity of the ten tribes, down to the destruc- tion of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. They thus cover altogether a period of about 430 KINGSLEY years beginning with about 1015 B. C. Some chapters dwell with special interest on the acts of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Excepting these, the work seems to be an extract from annals of the Hebrew kings, to which reference is frequently made. The name of the author is unknown. Some suppose him to be identi- cal with the author of Samuel, which others regard as improbable on critical grounds. He was probably a contemporary of Jeremiah, if not that prophet himself. The division of the work into two books is not founded on any in- trinsic reasons. Among the best commenta- ries upon the book are those by Keil (1848; revised ed., 1865), Thenius (1849), and George Rawlinson (in the collection known as the Speaker's Commentary," 1873). KINGSBOROUGH, Edward King, viscount, an English archaeologist, born Nov. 16, 1795, died in Dublin, Feb. 27, 1837. He is distinguished for his great work entitled "Antiquities of Mexico, comprising Facsimiles of Ancient Mexican Paintings and Hieroglyphics, together with the Monuments of New Spain by M. Du- paix, with their respective Scales of Measure- ment, and accompanying Descriptions; the whole illustrated by many valuable inedited MSS." (9 vols. fol., London, 1831-'48). The eighth and ninth volumes were published after his death, which took place from a fever caught in a debtor's prison, where he had been tem- porarily confined for a resistance to an at- tempted imposition. The first seven volumes are estimated to have cost upward of $300,000. The work is chiefly valuable for its generally faithful reproduction, in facsimile, of such Mex- ican hieroglyphical or painted records and ritu- als as were known to exist in the libraries and private collections of Europe. These, however, are often carelessly arranged, and the pages so confused as to be utterly unintelligible except to advanced students in American archaeology. Most of the original speculations of Lord Kings- borough are exceedingly loose and crude, and mainly directed to the establishment of the hy- pothesis of the Jewish origin of the American Indians, or at least of the semi-civilized nations of Mexico and Central America. The ninth volume, containing the relation of Don Alva Ixtlilxochitl, is imperfect, closing abruptly without finishing the relation. Since the pub- lication of the work of Lord Kingsborough a large number of additional Mexican MSS. or paintings have come to light, including a con- siderable part of those collected by Boturini, and supposed to have been lost. It has also been found, by careful collation, that the facsimiles of the work are not always critically correct. KINGSBURY, a S. E. county of Dakota, re- cently formed and not included in the census of 1870 ; area, about 750 sq. m. It is inter- sected in the W. part by the Dakota or James river. KINGSLEY, Calvin, an American clergyman, born at Annsville, N. Y., Sept. 8, 1812, died in Beyrout, Syria, April 6, 1870. He was licensed