Oesel
an island in the Baltic belonging to the Republic of Esthonia, and lying across the mouth of the Gulf of Riga; length about 45 miles; area, 1,000 square miles; pop. about 60,000. The surface is undulating, broken by low hills, marshy, watered by numerous small streams, and well wooded. The coast is generally formed by high cliffs.
The climate is milder than that of the neighboring continental districts. The only town is Arensburg, on the S. E. coast. Many of the inhabitants of Arensburg are of German descent, as are the nobles and the clergy of the island; but the peasantry are Esthonian. Long governed by the Teutonic knights, it became a Danish province in 1559, was given up to Sweden in 1645, and in 1721 fell into the hands of Russia. Capital Arensburg. Pop. 5,000. Island population 66,000, chiefly Esthonians. ESOPHAGUS, in anatomy, a slightly flexed canal, between the pharynx and the stomach, inclining to the left in the neck, the right in the upper thorax, and the left again through the posterior mediastinum. It is narrow and flat in the neck, and rounded in the lower and longest part. It passes through the diaphragm, and terminates nearly opposite the 10th dorsal vertebra in the cardiac orifice of the stomach. The passage of the food is caused by muscular contrac tion through the action of the parvagum nerve.