Single-source entries: V (23)

Viscosity

stickiness; in physics, resistance of a fluid to relative change in its particles; capability of a solid to yield continually under stress.

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Viscount

a degree or title of nobility ranking next below an earl, and above a baron. It is the most recently established English title of nobility, lity, having been first conferred by letters patent from Henry VI. on John Lord Beaumont, in A. D. 1440. The title of viscount is frequently held in England as the second title of an earl, and is borne by the eldest son as a courtesy title during the life of his father. The coronet of a viscount of England is composed of a circle of gold, chased, having on the edge 12, 14 or 16 pearls; the cap of crimson velvet, turned up with ermine, and closed at the top with a rich tassel of gold.

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Viscum

the mistletoe; a genus of Loranthaceæ. Leaves opposite, whorled, or wanting; flowers unisexual; males with the calyx obsolete; four petals; ovate, fleshy, united at the base, and bearing each a single anther, adnate with its upper surface. Fertile flowers, with a superior calyx having an obscure margin; four erect, ovate, very minute petals, and a sessile stigma. Known species believed to be about 100; from hot and temperate climates.

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Vishnu

. See Brahma

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Visible Speech

the system of expressing speech sounds by written symbols, invented by Prof. Alexander Melville Bell during the years 1849-1864. Its fundamental principle is, says its author, "that all relations of sound are symbolized by relations of form, each organ and each mode of organic action having its appropriate symbol, and all sounds of the same nature produced at different parts of the mouth (such as t and d, b and p) being represented by a single symbol turned in a direction corresponding to the organic position." The shapes of these symbols not being founded on any existing alphabet, the system here can only be illustrated illustrated, in the absence of the peculiar fount, by two that bear an accidental likeness to our current letters-O, symbolizing that the throat is open, and C, that part of the mouth is contracted. Among the advantages claimed for visible speech by Professor Bell are its power of representing the exact sounds of foreign languages (even Zulu clicks), and the facilities offered by it toward teaching the illiterate and blind to read, and the deaf and dumb to speak. But though the first at least of these claims has been established by rigid tests, and is admitted by A. J. Ellis and other eminent phonologists, the system has not, as its inventor hoped, been taken up by the government. See Bell's "Visible Speech," "The Science of Universal Alphabetics" (London, 1867).

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Vit

VINCENZO DE, an Italian Latinist; born in Padua, Italy, in 1811. He was an ecclesiastic by profession, was a canon of Rovigo, and town librarian, when in 1850 he joined the brotherhood of Rosmini. On his jubilee in 1888 Leo XIII. sent him a gold medal. He edited Forcellini's "Complete Latin Lexicon" in six volumes, and wrote a supplemental seventh volume, giving in 1,000 pages in double columns all the words in recently discovered inscriptions or codices. His minor writings on history, archæology, and philology have been collected in a uniform edition published at Milan and Florence. His greatest original work is the "Onomasticon," or "Namebook," containing all proper names down to the 5th century. Thirty-six years' labor had just brought him to the end of O, clos- Vol. X ing the fourth volume, when he died, fact that their diet lacked the water Aug. 17, 1892.

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Vitebsk

before the World War a province of western Russia, surrounded by Pskov, Smolensk, Mohilev, Minsk, Vilna, Courland, and Livonia; area, 16,- 983 square miles; pop. about 2,000,000. The surface is in general hilly; in the depressions are numerous marshes and more than 2,500 lakes, of which the largest are Lubahan, Rasno, Nevel, Sebesh and Osvea. The chief rivers are the Duna, Mesha, Kasplja, Ulla, Drissa and Evst. The soil is far from fertile, and the harvests, except under the most favorable conditions, are insufficient for the wants of the population. The principal occupations are agriculture, cattle rearing, hunting and fishing, besides tanning, weaving and the manufacture of brandy and tobacco. Flax, linseed, hides, building timber, and fancy wares are exported.

capital of the province of Vitebsk, lies on both sides of the Duna, 79 miles N. W. of Smolensk. It has many churches, several synogogues, an old palace, a theater, a gymnasium, and a hospital, manufactures of mead and leather, and an active transit trade. Popabout 120,000. VITELLIN. See GLOBULIN.

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Vitellius

AULUS, a Roman em peror; son of Lucius Vitellius, the consul (34); born A. D. 15. At that dark AULUS VITELLIUS period of Roman history vice and not virtue was the passport to royal favor, and the son like the father was a master of the arts of servile cringing and abject flattery. To these he owed his rapid rise and his favor with Tiberius, Caius Caligula, Claudius and Nero. On the death of Galba he was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers at Köln, Jan. 2, A. D. 69, and and having crushed his rival Otho he secured undisputed possession of Italy. Though undoubtedly a man of low character, he did not proceed to extreme measures against the adherents of his rival. His chief passion was sensual gluttony, and he spent enormous sums of money in eating and drinking. Vespasianus revolted, and was proclaimed emperor July 1 at Alexandria, and Antonius Primus declared for the new emperor and hastened into Italy at the head of a powerful force. He defeated the generals of Vitellius twice and entered Rome, Dec. 21 or 22, A. D. 69. The fallen emperor was seized, dragged with every mark of ignominy through the streets and murdered.

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Vitellus

or YOLK, the name given to a part of the eggs or ova of animals. It varies in form and size in different eggs, some being "large-yolked,' and others "small-yolked." The hen lays a large-yolked egg, the embryo being developed from a mere speck on the surface, named the cicatricula or tread. The name vitellin was formerly given to the essential substance of which the vitellus was believed to consist, but this substance has been shown to be merely a form of albumen and casein, and not a globular fruits with an acrid and arospecial product of organic chemistry. The vitellus consists of highly-concen- is a small tree or shrub, wild in India trated protoplasmic or albuminous matter, along with mineral substances, and it contains the nutritive matter from which the early tissues of the embryo are formed. In many respects the egg yolk resembles milk in its nature.

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