Yew
yu, an evergreen tree allied to the pines, but bearing red or bluish berry-like fruit instead of cones. Our northeastern yew is a trailing shrub, the California yew is a fair-sized tree forty to fifty feet high, and the Florida yew is a shrubby tree fifteen to twenty-five feet high. The Japanese yew has dark green foliage and red bark. The yew of history is a short-trunked, low-branching tree twenty to sixty feet in height. Its heart wood is orange red or brownish and has long been esteemed, especially the yew of Spain, for bows and fine cabinet work. The reader of Ivanhoe will recall that Isaac of York offers good Diccon Bend-the-Bow or Locksley a hundred staves of Spanish yew to make bows if he will but keep silence about a certain vault where Isaac kept his money. The citizens of Frankfurt expended $2,000 to move a venerated yew tree to a place of safety in the city palm garden. This yew is reputed to be 400 years old. In the British Isles, the "venerable" yew is associated with walks and churchyards. Gray in his Elegy alludes to a fine specimen yet standing in the churchyard of Stoke Pogis. A number of English yew trees are 300 and 400 years old. Yew trees of half that age may be found in the first settled parts of North America . The yew tree is traditionally the special abhorrence of witches. See Cedar ; Sequoia
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Ygdrasil
or YGGDRASILL (ig' dra-sil), in Scandinavian mythology, the Cyc 31 giant ash tree spread over the whole world reaching above the heavens, symbolizing the universe, the branches of which reach down to the under world, or Scandinavian hell.
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Yielding-platen Moulding-machine, Yoke & Yttrium
Yielding-platen Moulding-machine See MOULDING-MACHINES. Yoke A name in some localities for the bail of a crane-ladle. See BAIL. Yttrium This metal was discovered by Wohler in 1828. It is a very rare metal, dark gray in color, and very brittle. See METALS.
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Yoakum
a city of Texas, in De Witt and Lavaca cos. It is on the San Antonio and Arkansas Pass railroad. Its industries include railroad shops, a canning factory, an ice factory, flour mills, bottling works, etc. Pop. (1910) 4,657; (1920) 6,184.
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Yoga
one of the six Darsanas, i. e.. schools or systems of Brahmanical philosophy, that of Patanjali, the essence of which is meditation. It believes in a primordial soul which has had existence from an earlier period than primeval matter, and holds that from the two arose the spirit of life (Mahanatma). Theoretically, at least, its devotees can acquire even in this world entire command over elementary matter by certain ascetic practices, such as long continued suppression of the respiration, inhaling and exhaling the breath in a particular manner, sitting in 84 attitudes, fixing the eyes on the tip of the nose, and endeavoring, by the force of mental abstraction, to unite themselves with the vital spirit which pervades all nature and is identical with Siva. When this mystic union is effected, the Yoga can make himself lighter than the lightest, or heavier than the heaviest substance, or as small or as large as he pleases; he can traverse all space, can become invisible, can equally know the past, the present, and the future, and can animate any dead body by transferring to it his own spirit; finally he becomes united with Siva, and is excempt from the necessity of undergoing further transmigrations.
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Yogis
Yogis (See India .)
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Yonkers
a city in Westchester co., N. Y.; on the Hudson river and on the New York Central and Hudson River railroads; immediately adjoining New York City on the N. It is noted for its beautiful suburban residences, many of which are built on the terraces of the Hudson, the shore of which here reaches an altitude of 425 feet above the tide water, thus giving grand views of the river and the opposite shore. Here are Lowden and Halsted Schools, a high school, public library, Hebrew Home for the Aged and Infirm, the Leake and Watts Orphan Home, Homœopathic Home, St. Joseph's Hospital, St. John's Riverside Hospital, and "Graylock," the summer residence of the late Samuel J. Tilden. In the suburbs are the Convent of Mount St. Vincent and the former residence of Edwin Forrest, now used as the art gallery of the convent. The public school enrollment is over 10,000. The city has manufactories of carpets, hats, elevators, sugar, maltine, tools, chemicals, silk goods, etc. Pop. (1910) 79,803; (1920) 100,176.
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Yonne
a department of France; surrounded by the departments of Seine-et-Marne, Aube, Côte-d'Or, Nièvre, and Loiret; area, 2,868 square miles; pop. about 300,000. The department is watered by the Yonne river, which flows across it in a N. E. direction. The surface is hilly, many of the hills being covered with fruitful vineyards, the intervening valleys being beautiful and fertile. There are some fine forests in the department. The vineyards yield large quantities of wine, the best being those of Chablis, Auxerre, and Tonnere. The chief mineral products are red granite, marble, limestone, and ocher; and there are some miscellaneous manufactures. Capital, Auxerre.
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York Peninsula
in Queensland, ' Australia, the region lying on the E. F side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and terminating at its N. end in Cape York.
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Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph
Spiritualistic Journal. (See Spiritualism .)
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Yoruba
a country of west Africa, N. of the Bight of Benin. It is peopled by a number of confederated tribes, and is now attached to the colony and protectorate of Lagos. Much of the country is fertile and well cultivated, and the inhabitants have made great progress in the industrial arts. They are chiefly pagans, but Mohammedanism has made way among them. Protestant and Roman Catholic missions have long been at work among them. Ibadan is the largest town.
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Yoshihito
Emperor of Japan, born in 1879, the third son of the Emperor YOSHIHITO Meiji Tenno. He became Crown Prince in 1890, following the death of the second of his elder brothers. For a period of eight years he was a student at the Gakushu-in or Peers' School, after which his studies were continued at the palace in Aayama, Tokyo. When he arrived at the appointed age in July, 1897, he took his seat in the House of Peers. On May 10, 1900, he married Princess Sada-Ko, the fourth daughter of Prince Kujo. By her he has had three children, Prince Hirohito, the Crown Prince (born 1901), Prince Yashuhito (born 1902), and Prince Nabuhito (born 1905). After his marriage he toured the provinces of the Japanese Empire, making himself acquainted with the whole country. On Aug. 20, 1912, following the death of his father, he ascended the throne. Since his accession Yoshihito, who according to custom is known to the upper strata of Japanese society as Shu-jo or "Supreme Master," and to the mass of the people as Tewshi Sama or "August Son of Heaven," has shown democratic tendencies and is popular. He has shown an eager desire to co-oper co-operate with his ministers in the furtherance of Japanese ambitions for the strengthening of the empire.
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