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URAL factories of cotton goods, and 1 of cotton yarn. Capital, Thomaston. URAL, formerly Talk, a river of Russia, form- ing a part of the geographical boundary be- tween Europe and Asia. It takes its rise in the district of Troitzk, in the Asiatic portion of the government of Orenburg, in the S. part of the Ural mountains. Its source is about 1,600 ft. above the sea, and it flows at first S. past Upper Uralsk, Magnitnaya, and Kizil- skaya, bends W. near Orsk, passes Orenburg, and turning S. E. flows past Uralsk, thence S., and discharges into the Caspian sea by sev- eral mouths, near Guriev, about lat. 47 N. Its length is estimated at about 1,100 m. Its principal affluents are : on the right, the Kizil, Tanalyk, and Sakmara; on the left, the Or and Ilek. In its upper portion it is obstructed by rapids, and flows through a mountainous country; lower down it passes through wide steppes or saline plains, one of which lying between this river and the Volga is called the Uralian steppe. Toward winter the river near its mouth abounds with fish. The navigation of the Ural is of very little importance. A line of forts has been erected along its shores as a defence against the Bashkirs and Kirghiz. URAL MOUNTAINS, the chain of mountains forming the N. E. boundary of Europe, and geographically separating European Russia from Siberia, though almost all included in the administrative divisions of the former. Of very moderate height and breadth, the chain would appear insignificant but for the contrast it presents to the great regions of plains that spread from its "W. flank over central Russia and from its E. side into Siberia. Its course is nearly due N. and S. over an extent, as usu- ally estimated, of 18 or 19 degrees of latitude, with a general breadth of about 40 m. On the south it begins on the right bank of the Ural river at the Kirghiz steppe^in about lat. 51 N. ; but high lands may be traced still further S. into the region lying between the lake of Aral and the Caspian sea. On the north its termination is at the gulf of Kara in the Arctic ocean, though its continuation is marked in the rocky hills on the W. side of Nova Zembla. The highest summit of this portion of the range, named Glassovskoi, is about 2,500 ft. above the sea. The average elevation of the Ural mountains is probably less than 2,000 ft. above the sea, and its high- est summits do not reach 6,000 ft. Much of the range blends so gradually into the plains at its sides that it has little of the mountain- ous character, and is crossed by easy roads, as that by which Yekaterinburg is reached from Perm. The highest summit is Telposis, 6,537 ft. ; other principal summits are Denesh- kin Kamen, 5,357 ft., and Iremel, 5,038 ft. It is only in the extreme northern part that the mountains remain covered with snow du- ring summer. In general, the chain is clothed with forests of the gigantic pinus cembra, above which are often picturesque ledges, fre- URANIUM 219 quently overgrown with peonies, roses, and geraniums. The rocks of which these moun- tains are composed resemble those of the Ap- palachian mountains. The lower groups are Silurian strata metamorphosed into crystalline rocks, which for the most part are talcose schists, quartzites, and limestones. To these succeed the upper Silurian, Devonian, and car- boniferous, the strata of which are also more or less altered, though still retaining traces of their characteristic fossils. A marked contrast is observed in the appearance of these rocks on the European and Asiatic slopes. On the former the strata are indeed contorted, frac- tured, and partially changed; while in the centre, as on the eastern slopes; the masses consist everywhere either of highly altered and crystalline Silurian strata, or of the eruptive rocks which penetrate them. It is in these formations, especially where the talcose and chloritic schists are traversed by veinstones of quartz or cut by dikes of igneous rocks, that gold is found. In the debris from these are situated the gold washings, which furnish the chief portion of this metal and of platinum to the Russian government. There are also im- portant mines of iron and copper; and dia- monds, emeralds, and various other precious stones are found in the same region. The most important mines are in the neighborhoods of Nizhni Tagilsk, Yekaterinburg, Berezov, Zla- toust, and Miyask. See Russlands Moritan- Indmtrie, insbesondere dessen Eisenwesen, J>e- leucMet nacJi der Industrie- Ausstellung eu St. Petersburg und einer Bereisung der wrzuglich- sten Huttenwerlce des Urals im Jahre 1870, by P. von Tunner (Leipsic, 1871). URANIA, one of the nine muses, daughter of Zeus by Mnemosyne. She was regarded as the muse of astronomy, and was usually repre- sented with a little staff pointing at a celestial globe. Urania, "the celestial," was also an epithet of Aphrodite or Venus, as the goddess of pure love, in distinction from Pandemos. URANIUM, a metal, the protoxide of which, supposed to be the metal itself, was discovered in 1789 by Klaproth in the mineral pitchblende, and was named by him after the planet Uranus, then lately discovered. The metal itself was not really separated until M. P61igot obtained it about 1840 by decomposing its chloride by means of potassium or sodium. Thus pro- duced, it is partly in the form of a black pow- der, and in part composed of silvery lamina which can be filed and are somewhat ductile. The metal dissolves in dilute acids, setting free hydrogen gas. Its specific gravity is 18'4. In the air it undergoes no change at common tem- peratures; but when the metal in the form of a powder is moderately heated, it takes fire and burns with a remarkably white and shi- ning light. The product of this combustion is a deep green oxide. Uranium is represented by the symbol U, and its chemical equivalent is 240 (formerly 60, then 120). It forms two classes of compounds: the uranous, in which it