in which his performance of Sir Richard Kato, Q.C., was especially fine; and The Home Secretary (1895). He also revisited America several times. In 1899 he opened the splendid new Wyndham's Theatre in London. He was knighted in June, 1902. Consult Scott, The Drama of Yesterday and To-Day (London, 1899).
WYNDHAM, George (1863—). An English Cabinet Minister. He was born in London, and was educated at Eton College and at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, where he graduated in 1882. In 1883 he entered the Coldstream Guards and served through the Suakim campaign and in Cyprus (1885), when he resigned from the army. From 1887 to 1892 he was private secretary to A. J. Balfour. In 1889 he entered Parliament as a Conservative member from Dover, and in 1898 became Under Secretary of State for War. In 1900 he was advanced to the position of Chief Secretary for Ireland, and in 1902 was made a member of the Cabinet. He first became a figure of international interest when, on March 25, 1903, he introduced an Irish land purchase bill more radical in its provisions than any measure heretofore proposed for the relief and pacification of Ireland. His tactful and conciliatory attitude rendered the passage of the bill possible. He published, with elaborate and scholarly introductions, North's Plutarch (1894), and Shakespeare's Poems (1898).
WYNTOUN, wīn′tŭn, Andrew of (1350?-1420?). A Scottish chronicler, about whom very little is known except that he was a canon regular of Saint Andrew's and was elected about 1395 prior of Saint Serf's Inch in Loch Leven. His Oryginale Cronykil of Scotland, in verse, possesses great linguistic interest as a specimen of early English written in the North. Like Barbour's Bruce, the poem is composed in octosyllabic verse. The work was edited by David Laing for the ‘Historians of Scotland Series’ (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1872-79). A new edition from the Wemyss manuscript is being prepared for the Scottish Text Society.
WYO′MING (corrupted from North American Indian Maughwauwama, large plains). A Western State of the United States, situated within the Rocky Mountain region between latitudes 41° and 45° N., longitudes 104° 3′ and 111° 3′ W. It is bounded on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado and Utah, and on the west by Utah and Idaho. Wyoming is rectangular in shape, measuring 355 miles from east to west and 276 miles from north to south. Its boundaries are straight lines running along meridians and parallels of latitude. The area of the State is 97,890 square miles, making it the sixth in size among the States.
Topography. The whole State is a lofty plateau including almost the entire breadth of the Rocky Mountain system, and the Continental Divide crosses it from the northwestern corner to the middle of the southern boundary. The plateau consists of a comparatively level floor lying from 5000 to 7000 feet above the sea, and traversed by a number of more or less detached mountain ranges, which divide the vast plains into a number of separate basins. The ranges rise from 3000 to 4000 feet above the surrounding country, their general elevation being 10,000 to 11,000 feet. In the southeastern part of the State the Laramie Plains are inclosed by the Laramie range on the northeast, the Rattlesnake and Seminole ranges on the northwest, and the detached groups of the Snowy and Medicine Bow ranges on the southwest. North and east of the Laramie range the vast plains of the Platte and Cheyenne basins stretch for 150 miles in either direction. They are bounded on the northeast by the Black Hills, which extend across the State boundary from South Dakota. In the southwestern quarter of the State there is another extensive plain-basin known as the Red Desert, but the northwestern quarter is preëminently a region of lofty mountains, having only one basin of considerable size, that of the Big Horn. This is bounded on the east by the magnificent Big Horn Mountains, which extend 100 miles southward from the middle of the northern boundary, and form one of the longest and most continuous ranges in the State. Southwest of the Big Horn Basin are the Shoshone and Owl Creek Mountains, which are separated by the narrow Wind River Valley from the massive and snow-clad Wind River range, extending southeastward toward the Red Desert. This range is the loftiest in the State; it has several peaks over 13,000 feet high, and Fremont Peak, the highest point, has an altitude of 13,790 feet. The Gros Ventre, a spur of the Wind River range, runs westward to the cañon of the Snake River, beyond which, just inside the western State boundary, the Teton range rises in the Grand Teton to a height of 13,671 feet. The extreme northwestern part of the State is a rugged complex of lofty mountains and plateaus cut by numerous cañons, and this region has been set apart as a Federal reservation known as the Yellowstone National Park (q.v.).
Hydrographically Wyoming is divided among three of the greatest drainage systems of the country, those of the Columbia and the Colorado rivers on the Pacific slope, and that of the Missouri on the Atlantic slope. The last occupies by far the largest area. The Yellowstone River flows through the Yellowstone Park, and with its two largest tributaries, the Big Horn and the Powder rivers, drains most of the northern half of the State. The other tributaries of the Missouri, draining the eastern and south central portions, are the Little Missouri and the Cheyenne in the northeast and the North Platte in the southeast. The latter enters the State from Colorado, and makes a great, almost circular, bend around the Laramie Mountains. Its largest affluents within the State are the Sweetwater from the west and the Laramie from the south. The southwestern part of Wyoming is drained by the Green River, the main hoadstream of the Colorado. It rises on the Wind River range, and flows southward into Utah. Shoshone Lake in Yellowstone Park gives rise to the Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia. It flows southward for nearly 100 miles, and then, in a grand cañon, breaks through the gap between the Teton and Salt River ranges, passing into Idaho. The largest lakes in the State are Yellowstone Lake, in the Yellowstone Park, and Jackson Lake, traversed by the Snake River, some distance south of the park.
Climate and Soil. The climate is dry and sunny, and, as a rule, very pleasant and health-
