in the large majority of the Protestant state churches, United Evangelical as well as Lutheran, will ere long define the position of every church in regard to the union. In Austria and France a fusion of the Lutheran and Reformed churches has also many friends, but nothing has been done in the way of practical execution.—See Hering, Geschichte der kirchlichen Unionsversuche (2 vols., Leipsic, 1836-'8); Nitzsch, Urkundenbuch der evangelischen Union (Bonn, 1853); Julius Müller, Die evangelische Union (Leipsic, 1854) ; Stahl, Die lutherische Kirche und die Union (Berlin, 1858).—A branch of the United Evangelical church in the United States was established at St. Louis in 1840, when six German ministers organized an ecclesiastical body called Evangelisoher Kirchenverein dea Westens (Evangelical Church Union of the West). In 1856 this body was divided into three districts, in 1866 it changed its name into “German Evangelical Synod of the West,” and in 1870 it reported at the “General Assembly,” held in Louisville, 162 ministers, 300 congregations, 12,000 voting members, about 20,000 communicants, and a total population of about 50,000. Independent of this organization, another branch of the United Evangelical church was constituted in 1848 under the name of “Evangelical Synod of North America.” In May, 1859, it split into two independent bodies, one of which assumed the name “United Evangelical Synod of the Northwest,” and the other “United Evangelical Synod of the East.” Both of them united in 1872 with the “German Evangelical Synod of the West,” constituting henceforth the fourth and fifth districts of this body. In 1874 the church was redistricted by the general conference held in Indianapolis into seven particular synods; it numbered at this time about 300 ministers and 40,000 communicants. The church has a theological seminary in Warren co., Mo., and another educational institution at Elmhurst, Ill. In 1876 the German language was still exclusively used in all the congregations of this church. It publishes three denominational papers.
UNITED PROVINCES. See Netherlands.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, a federal republic in North America, comprising the central portion of the continent and the territory of Alaska, separated from the rest by British Columbia. (See Alaska.) The main portion lies between lat. 24° 30′ and 49° 24′ N. (at the lake of the Woods, W. of which the boundary follows the 49th parallel), and lon. 66° 50′ and 124° 45′ W. It is bounded N. by British America, from which it is in part separated by Lakes Superior, Huron, St. Clair, Erie, and Ontario, with their connecting streams, and the river St. Lawrence (see Canada, vol. iii., p. 672); E. by New Brunswick and the Atlantic ocean; S. by the gulf and republic of Mexico, from which it is partly separated by the Rio Grande; and W. by the Pacific ocean.
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[The device for the great seal of the United States, as adopted by act of the continental congress on June 20, 1782, and readopted by the new congress, Sept. 15, 1789, provided for an obverse and a reverse, substantially as here depicted; but there is no evidence that the reverse was ever made. In the obverse as originally adopted, the eagle held in his sinister talon a bundle of thirteen arrows, and the first seal was thus made; but when, in 1841, a new seal was made to take the place of the old one, which had become worn, only six arrows were put into the eagle's talon. Whether this change, which was unauthorized by law, was made by design or by accident, is not known.] | ||
The British American boundary, according to the war department map (1869), measures 3,540 m.; the Mexican, 1,550 m. The greatest length, from Cape Cod on the Atlantic to the Pacific near the 42d parallel, is nearly 2,800 m., and the greatest breadth, from the N. W. extremity of Minnesota to the southernmost point of Texas, 1,600 m.; general breadth, about 1,200 m. The area, according to Walker's “Statistical Atlas of the United States,” is 3,026,494 sq. m. (exclusive of lakes and river surfaces bounding the republic or the single states), of which 827,844 sq. m. belonged
