Upolu
one of the richest and most beautiful of the islands of the Pacific, belongs to the Samoan group, lying about 60 miles W. of Tutuila. It is 140 miles in circumference, and has about 16,000 inhabitants. The island has been a mission station for many years. It was awarded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Versailles. Many of the in- Christians. The chief habitants are harbor is Apia. Coffee and cotton are cultivated. The principal article of export is cocoanut oil.
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Upper Senegal and Niger
a French colonial possession in west Af rica, formed in 1904 from the territories of Senegal and the Niger, acquired in 1893. It extends from the southern boundaries of Algeria to the frontiers of Dahomey, Togoland, the Gold Coast and the Ivory Coast, with the military colony of the Niger to eastward and Mauritania, the Faleme river and French Guinea to the westward. It is over half a million square miles in area, the character of the country being largely rolling plateaus, capable le of being extensively developed agriculturally. It is watered by about two-thirds of the Niger. The population is about 5,600,000, of which 1,300 only are white.
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Upshur
ABEL PARKER, an American statesman; born in Northampton co., Va., June 17, 1790; was admitted to the bar in 1810; practiced at Richmond, Va., till 1824; became a member of the legislature in 1825; judge of the General Court of Virginia in 1826; delegate to the convention to revise the State constitution in 1829; and after the reorganization of the judicial system under that instrument was again elected judge of the same court. This position he continued to hold till 1841, when he was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President Tyler. Two years later, on the resignation of Daniel Webster, he was appointed Secretary of State. Early in 1844 he was on the United States Steamer "Princeton," on the Potomac river, in company with the President and other members of the cabinet, to witness experiments with a large wrought-iron gun which burst, and mortally wounded him together with several others. He died near Washington, D. C., Feb. 28, 1844.
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Ural
a river of Russia; rises on the E. side of the Urals in the province of Orenburg, and runs mainly S. for 1,400 miles, into the Caspian sea, being practically the boundary between Europe and Asia. It gives name to a province, Uralsk, which lies mainly E. of the river and N. of the Caspian, belonging to the Steppe region and to the "Kirghiz provinces" included in Asiatic Russia.
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Uralsk
a province of Russia, lying in the main east of the Ural river. It is one of the border provinces between Europe and Asia and has an area of 139,168 square miles. It is largely made up of dry steppes and deserts inclining to the Caspian, with a number of salt lakes and streams, of which only the Ural and the Emba reach the Caspian. The temperature varies greatly, the land is arid, the leading occupations being fishing and cattle raising. The fish products are valuable and those exported exceed in annual value $1,500,000. Pop. about 880,000, two-thirds being Kirghizes. The capital of the province is Uralsk; pop. about 50,000.
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Uraninite
or PITCHBLENDE, an ore of uranium from which radium is prepared. It is found in small quantities in Cornwall (England), Austria, Colorado, Connecticut, and North Carolina. The name is derived from the German Pechblende, owing to the similarity of the mineral to pitch and zinc-blende. It is black and opaque, with a dull luster, and gives a brownish black streak on paper. It may contain as much as 88 per cent. of uranium oxide, with small percentages of other rare metals, including thorium, cerium, zirconium, lanthanum, yttrium and erbium, the amount of radium amounting to only one part in five million.
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Urbana
a city of Illinois, and the the county-seat of Champaign co., on Chicago and St. Cleveland, Cincinnati, and the Illinois Louis, the Wabash, city is the center Traction railroads. The contains of a prosperous farming district, , and manextensive railroad repair shops and tile, lawn mowers, ufactories of brick etc. Urbana is the seat of the University are a public library, of Illinois. There a county court house, a high school, a , etc. Pop. post office, a Masonic temple . (1910) 8,245; (1920) 10,244
a city and county-seat of Pittsburgh, Champaign co., O.; on the Louis, the Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Cincinnati and Erie, and the Cleveland, by N. of Chicago railroads: 40 miles W. Urbana University Columbus. Here are con- (Swedenborgian), a public library, Home, elecvent, high school, Children's banks tric lights, waterworks, National , weekly newsand a number of daily and factory, papers. The city has an egg-case mills broom factories, tannery, woolen , works, railroad car shops, straw-board . etc. Pop. (1910) 7,739; (1920) 7,621
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Urbino
an ancient town of central Italy; in the province of Pesaro and Urbino; between the Foglia and Metauro rivers, remote from the highways of commerce. It is a town of narrow, tortuous streets, with an archbishop's cathedral and other churches; a magnificent ducal palace (1447; restored, and now housing the fine art institution); a free university, dating from 1564, but now attracting less than 100 students, and the house in which Raphael was born, now the town museum. Cheese, silk, pins, and some majolica ware are manufactured, but not the majolica for which the place was famous for a century and a half after 1475. Urbino, anciently the Urbinum Hortense of Umbria, Umbria, was a municipium under the Romans and was the seat of a line of independent dukes from 1474 to 1626. On the death then of the last duke Urban VIII. took possession of the duchy as a vacant fief; and it belonged to the Papal states till 1860, when it became part of the kingdom of Italy. Pop. about 20,000. URDÉE, or URDY, in heraldry, pointed. A cross-urdée is one in which the extremities are drawn to a sharp point instead of being cut straight.
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Urena
in botany, the typical genus of Ureneæ. Involucre and calyx five-cleft; style divided above into 10 portions; carpels, five, prickly at the top. U. lobata, a shrub commonly occurring with the mango and bamboo in Bengal and throughout India, and U. sinuata, a small Indian shrub, have strong fibers, probably well adapted for the manufacture of sa sacking and twine. In Brazil a decoction of the root and stem of U. lobata is employed as a remedy in windy colic, and the flowers are given as an expectorant in dry and inveterate cough.
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