Oakham (4), county town of Rutland, 17 m. E. of Leicester, in the
centre of a fine wheat country; has an old church, a grammar-school
founded in 1581, and a castle mostly in ruins; manufactures of boots and
hosiery, and carries on malting.
Oakland (67), on the E. coast of the Bay of San Francisco, 4½ m. across from San Francisco city, is the capital of Alameda County, California, a beautiful city with tree-lined streets, surrounded by vineyards and orchards; it has a home of the adult blind of the State, manufactures of textile and iron goods, and fruit-canning industries, and is the terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
Oaks, The, one of the three great classic races in England, run at
Epsom; established by the 12th Earl of Derby in 1779 for fillies of 3
years old.
Oakum, name given to fibres of old tarry ropes sundered by teasing, and employed in caulking the seams between planks in ships; the teasing of oakum is an occupation for prisoners in jails.
Oases, fertile spots in a desert due to the presence of springs or
water near at hand underground; met with in the deserts of North Africa, Arabia, and Gobi.
Oates, Titus, fabricator of a Popish plot for the overthrow of the
Protestant faith in England, the allegation of which brought to the block
several innocent men; rewarded at first with a pension and safe lodgment
in Westminster Hall, was afterwards convicted of perjury, flogged, and
imprisoned for Life, but at the revolution was set at liberty and
granted a pension of £300 (1650-1705).
Obadiah, a Hebrew prophet who appears to have lived about 588 B.C., shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, at which the Edomites had assisted, and whose prophecy was written to assure the exiles in Babylon that the judgment of God had gone forth against Edom, and that with the execution of it Israel would be restored.
Oban (5), a modern town situated in the W. of Argyllshire, on a
land-locked bay opening off the Firth of Lorne, is the capital, sometimes
called the “Queen,” of the Western Highlands, and a fashionable tourist
resort; it has excellent railway and steamboat communications, 30 hotels, and has near it two ruined castles, an ancient cave dwelling, and much beautiful scenery; Dunstaffnage Castle is 4 m. to the N. of it, where the early Scottish kings used to be crowned.
Obeid (35), in the Eastern Soudan, 220 m. SW. of Khartoum, is the
capital of Kordofan; was the scene in November 1883 of the annihilation
by the forces of the Mahdi, after three days' fighting, of an Egyptian
army under Hicks Pasha and other English officers; its trade consists of
ivory, gold, feathers, and gum.
Obelisk, a tall four-sided pillar, generally monolithic, tapering to
a pyramidal pointed top, erected in connection with temples in Egypt, and
inscribed all over with hieroglyphs, and in memorial, as is likely, of
some historical personage or event; they are of ancient date.
Ober-Ammergau, a small village in Bavaria, 45 m. SW. of Münich; famed for the Passion Play performed there by the peasants, some 500 in number, every ten years, which attracts a great many spectators to the spot; the play was instituted in 1634 in token of gratitude for the abatement of a plague.
Oberlin, Jean Friedrich, a benevolent Protestant pastor, born at
Strasburg; laboured all his life at Ban de la Roche, a wild mountain
district of Alsace, and devoted himself with untiring zeal to the
spiritual and material welfare of the people, which they rewarded with
their pious gratitude and warmest affection.
Oberon, the king of the fairies, and the husband of Titania.
Obi, a river and, with its tributaries, great water highway of West
Siberia, which rises in the Altai Mountains, and after a course of 2120
m. falls into the Arctic Ocean.
Objective, a philosophical term used to denote that which is true
universally apart from all merely private sense or judgment, and finds
response in the universal reason, the reason that is common to all
rational beings; it is opposed to subjective, or agreeable to one's mere
feelings or fancy.
Oblates, the name given to an organisation of secular priests living
in community, founded by St. Charles Borromeo at the end of the 16th
century, and who are ready to render any services the bishop may require
of them.
Oboe, a treble-sounding musical instrument of the reed class, to
which the bassoon is reckoned the bass.