Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 20.djvu/837

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YALE UNIVERSITY.
707
YAMA.

erick W. Vanderbilt; and the Lampson Lyceum, containing lecture halls and administration offices for the academic department.

The total student enrollment in 1903-04 was 2963, distributed as follows: Graduate, 333; college, 1250; Sheffield Scientific School, 837; fine arts, 35; music, 82; Forest School, 64; divinity, 97; medicine, 141; law, 259. The faculty consisted of 329 instructors.

YALTA, yäl′tȧ. A district town in the Government of Taurida, South Russia, on the southern coast of the peninsula of the Crimea, 60 miles south of Simferopol (Map: Russia, D 6). It is a well-known sea-bathing resort. Its situation is picturesque. Population, in 1897, 13,269. Yalta is identified with the Galita or the Yalita of the Arabs. It was held by the Genoese in the fifteenth century.

YA-LU-KIANG, yä′lōō′kyäng′. One of the most important rivers of Korea, where it is also known as the Amnok or Apnok (Map: Korea, G 3). It rises in the Paik-tu-san (8000 feet high), the highest of the Shan-a-lin or Chang-peh-shan system of Manchuria, latitude 41° 59′ N., and flows in a generally southwest direction into the Yellow Sea near the city of Wiju, forming in its course the northwest boundary of the country. It is navigable by sea-going junks for 30 miles from its mouth, and by smaller craft as far as Wi-wön, 145 miles farther up. In its upper course it is obstructed by some eighteen dangerous rapids, yet immense rafts of fine timber are annually floated down to the sea, chiefly for export to Northern China. Off the mouth of the Yalu a great naval battle between the Chinese and the Japanese was fought in 1894, resulting in the destruction of the Chinese fleet. See Korea.

YA-LUNG-KIANG, yä′lōōng′kyäng′. A river of Western China, rising on the southern slope of the Bayan-kara, an eastern extension of the Kuen-lun Mountains in Eastern Tibet, near the headwaters of the Yellow River, latitude 34° N. and longitude 97° E. (Map: China, B 6). Its course is generally south through deep gorges parallel with the Kin-sha-kiang or Yang-tse, which it joins after a course of several hundred miles in latitude 26° 35′ N. It is a very swift stream, much impeded by rapids, and is not navigable except in local stretches.

YAM (from Sp. ñame, iñame, igname, ignama, Port. inhame, yam, from African nyame, yam), Dioscorea. A genus of mostly East and West Indian plants of the natural order Dioscoreaceæ, distinguished by an inferior ovary and membranous winged fruit. They have herbaceous twining stems, and fleshy roots which in some species are used as food, like potatoes. They contain much starch, and generally become somewhat mealy and pleasant to the taste when boiled. The tubers of all the yams contain an acrid substance, which, however, is dissipated by boiling, except in the species with compound leaves. The winged yam (Dioscorea alata) has roots 1½ to 3 feet long, and often 30 pounds in weight, with a brownish or black skin, juicy and reddish within. They vary exceedingly in form. Small tubers are generally found in the axils of the leaves. This species is the original of most, or perhaps all, of the yams cultivated in tropical Asia, Africa, and America: the common yam of the West Indies (Dioscorea sativa) , which has a round stem and heart-shaped leaves; Dioscorea bulbifera, in which the tubers in the axils of the leaves attain the size of apples; the prickly yam (Dioscorea aculeata), which has a prickly stem, and a fasciculated, tuberous root; Dioscorea globosa, the most esteemed yam of India, which has very fragTant flowers, and roots white internally; Dioscorea rubella, another Indian kind, with tubers sometimes 3 feet long, tinged with red below the skin, etc. The Chinese yam (Dioscorea divaricata) is a perfectly hardy sort. Its edible club-shaped roots descend perpendicularly into the ground from two to three feet, and largely on this account it is little cultivated.

WILD YAM (Dioscorea villosa).

YAMA, yä′mȧ (Skt. yama, Av. yima, twin, but in later Sanskrit literature erroneously regarded as restrainer, punisher, from yam, to restrain). In Hindu mythology, a deification of the first mortal that died and thus became king of death, the judge and ruler of souls hereafter. In the Veda Yama is the supreme lord of the blessed dead. His abode is in the sky, in the highest heavens, near the sun. Agni (q.v.), the god of fire, is his friend and conducts the souls of the dead to his presence. Yama, moreover, has two dogs as messengers, and past these all the spirits of the dead must go. As a king in the Veda he is the child of Vivasvat, a personification of the sun and of Saranyu, a sun-maiden. He has also a twin sister named Yami, who desires to become his wife, and a hymn of the Rig-Veda, which gives a dialogue between them, contains evidently a protest against such a union.

In the later Hindu mythology, especially in the epic poems and in the Ṗarāṇas (q.v.). Yama has assumed wholly the office of judge of the dead and regent of the lower world. His realm is in the south; a number of hells are his, and in them he inflicts punishment upon the wicked. His messengers go about the earth summoning men to death, and drawing the soul out of the body with a noose, although he sometimes performs this office himself.

In Iranian mythology Yima or Jamshid an-