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VAN. vän. The capital of the Vilayet of Van, in Turkish Armenia, in a very fertile plain, two miles east of Lake Van (Map: Turkey in Asia, K 3). The town, surrounded by double walls and a moat, is poorly built, with narrow streets and flat-roofed mud houses. The most interesting archaeological feature of Van is the ancient castle, standing on a rock about 300 feet high. There are fragments of cuneiform inscriptions on the walls and a trilingual inscription of Xerxes on the southern side of the castle rock. There are a number of Christian schools in the town maintained by the American Mission. The population is estimated at 30,000, of whom the Armenians constitute about one-half.
Armenian historians give to Van the name of Shemiramagerd, or the 'City of Semiramis.' It is believed that Van occupies the site of Thospia, the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Biainas, and its citadel and fortifications date probably from the eighth century B.C. The city was captured by Sapor 11. in the middle of the fourth century A.D. At the beginning of the tenth century it became the capital of the Armenian Province of Vasburagan. It was captured at the end of the fourteenth century by Timur, after whose death it passed to Persia, and in the sixteenth century to the Osmanlis.
VAN, Lake. The largest lake in Asiatic Turkey. It lies near the Persian and Russian boundaries, between Armenia and Kurdistan, and close to the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris, at an altitude of over 5000 feet (Map: Turkey in Asia, K 3). It is about 80 miles long and 10 to 50 miles wide, with an area of 1400 square miles. Its shores are very irregular, and the lake is surrounded by densely wooded mountains. It receives a few short streams, but has no outlet, its water being very salt. Near its eastern shore lies the town of Van.
VANADINITE. A mineral lead chloride and vanadate crystallized in the hexagonal system. It has a resinous lustre, and in color varies from yellow to red and brown. It usually occurs as prismatic crystals with smooth faces and sharp edges, also sometimes in rounded forms and globular incrustations, and is found in the Urals, Sweden, Argentina, South Africa, and Mexico, and in the United States with wulfenite and pyromorphite at various localities in New York, Arizona, and New Mexico. This mineral finds some use as a source of vanadium salts, which are used as a pigment for porcelain, and in the manufacture of ink.
VANADIUM (Neo-Lat., from Vanadis, a Scandinavian goddess). A metallic element discovered by Sefstrom in 1830. It is never found native, but occurs in combination as vanadic acid in a number of minerals, including descoloizite, endlichite, motthamite, psittacinite, roscoelite, and vanadinite. It has also been found in the lava at Vesuvius and spectroscopically in the sun. It is a difficult metal to obtain pure, but was isolated by Roscoe by heating the anhydrous dichloride in pure dry hydrogen.
Vanadium (Symbol, Va: atomic weight, 51.38) is a light-gray powder that has a specific gravity of 5.5 and melts at a very high temperature. The metal combines with platinum to form an alloy, and with oxygen forms a monoxide, a dioxide, a trioxide, a tetroxide, and a pentoxide, of which the last two act as acid-forming oxides, forming hypovanadic and vanadic compounds. Of the various vanadium salts, ammonium metavanadate, formed by dissolving the pentoxide in ammonium hydrate, is used as a black pigment, frequently with aniline as a dye, and also as the basis of a permanent black ink.
VAN BEMMEL. vän bēm'ēl, Eugene, Baron (1824-80). A Belgian author and educator, born at Ghent. He studied law, but turned to literature, and in 1846 attracted considerable attention by his De la langue et de la poésie provençales. In 1849 he was called to the chair of French literature at the University of Brussels, where subsequently he lectured on modern political history, archæology, and comparative literature. He was secretary of the Society of Belgian Authors and first director of the Revue de Trimestrielle, which he founded in 1854 and which in 1864 became the Revue de Belgique. In 1871 he was made rector of the University. Besides the work mentioned above and many
