terogeneous collection of
treatises connected with the Vedas, and the chief source of our knowledge
of the early metaphysical speculations and ethical doctrines of the
Hindus; they are to a great extent apocryphal, and are posterior to the
rise of Buddhism.

UPAS TREE, a poison-yielding-tree, at one time fabled to exhale such
poison that it was destructive to all animal and vegetable life for miles
round it.

UPOLU (16), the principal island in the SAMOAN GROUP (q. v.),
is 140 m. in circumference, and rises in verdure-clad terraces from
a belt of low land on the shore, with Apia, the capital of the group, on
the N. border.

UPPINGHAM, market-town in Rutland, with a famous public school.

UPSALA (21), the ancient capital of Sweden, on the Sala, 21 m. NW.
of Stockholm, the seat of the Primate, and of a famous university with
1900 students, and a library of 250,000 volumes; its cathedral, built of
brick in the Gothic style, is the largest in Sweden, contains the tombs
of Linnaeus and of Gustavus Vasa.

URAL, a river of Russia, which rises in the E. of the Urals and
forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia, and falls after a
course of 870 m. by a number of mouths into the Caspian Sea.

URALS, THE, a range of mountains rich in precious as well as useful
metals, extending from the Arctic Sea to the Sea of Aral, and separating
European from Asiatic Russia, and is 1330 m. in length, 60 m. in breadth,
and 3000 ft. in average height.

URALSK (26), a town, a Cossack centre, on the Ural River, 280 m.
from the Caspian Sea, and a place of considerable trade.

URANIA, the muse of astronomy, is represented with a globe in her
hand, to which she points with a small rod.

URANUS, a planet, the outermost but one of the solar system, is 1770
millions of miles from the sun, takes 30,686 of our days, or 84 of our
years, to revolve round it, has four times the diameter of the earth, and
is accompanied by four moons; it was discovered in 1781 by Herschel, and
called by him Georgium Sidus in honour of George III.

URANUS (Heaven), in the Greek mythology the son of Gaia (the Earth),
and by her the father of the Titans; he hated his children, and at birth
thrust them down to Tartarus, to the grief of Gaia, at whose instigation
Kronos, the youngest born, unmanned him, and seized the throne of the
Universe, to be himself supplanted in turn by his son Zeus.

URBAN, the name of eight popes: URBAN I., Pope