WALNUT 439 studied at the normal school in Paris, and in 1840 was appointed a professor in the Sor- bonne, teaching modern history and geography. His works De Vesclavage de la colonie (1847) and Histoire de Vesclavage dam Vantiquite (3 vols., 1847-'8) led to his appointment as secre- tary of Schoelcher's anti-slavery committee, and to his election in Guadeloupe to the con- stituent assembly, in which however he did not sit. In 1849 he became a member of the legis- lative assembly for Valenciennes, but withdrew in May, 1850, on account of the restriction of suffrage. He was elected to the new nation- al assembly on Feb. 8, 1871. His amendment (February, 1875) was the first step toward the definitive establishment of the republic, of which he is familiarly called the father. In March, 1875, he became minister of education and of religion. Despite the opposition to his ultramontane views, he was elected by the as- sembly on Jan. 30, 1876, to the new senate. In the same year he was appointed dean of the faculty of letters. His works include Les saints jfivangiles, after Bossuet (1855 ; new ed., 2 vols., 1863); Jeanne d'Are (2 vols., 1860; new ed., 1876), which received the great Go- bert prize ; La vie de Jesus et son nouvel Ms- tor 'ten (1864), refuting Eenan; Richard II., episode de la rivalite de la France et de VAn- gleterre (2 vols., 1864) ; and La Terreur, etude critique sur Vhistoire de la revolution fran- caise (1872). WALLOONS (Flemish, Waelen a Romance population, over 2,000,000 in number, living in Belgium, chiefly in the region extending be- tween Li6ge, Mons, and Arlon, and in adjoin- ing parts of France. They are of mixed Gal- lic and Teutonic blood, the former largely pre- dominating. Their language is an old dialect of the French, although among the upper classes French itself is generally spoken. Of recent attempts to extend the literary use of this patois, the most valuable are those of Auguste Hock, who has published in "Walloon French four volumes of miscellaneous wri- tings (Paris, 1872-'5). See also the unfinished work of Grandgagnage, Dictionnaire etymo- logique de la langue wallone (Liege, 1845). The Walloon church is that branch of the French Reformed church which was expelled from the Catholic Netherlands at the time of the rise of the Dutch republic. Its members settled chiefly in Holland, or emigrated to America, forming several congregations in New Netherland (New York). WALL PAPER. See PAPER HANGINGS. WALNUT, the common name of large nut- bearing forest trees of the genus juglans (from Lat. Jovis glans, the nut of Jupiter), which with the hickories (carya) and a few others make up the walnut family (juglandacece), in which the trees have a colorless juice, a strong- scented bark, compound leaves, the staminate flowers in catkins, the fertile in small clusters of two or more ; the fruit a dry drupe, with a single four-lobed seed. In the walnut tree several accessory buds are formed, one above another, the uppermost far above the axil ; the pith of the stems is in transverse plates ; the odd-pinnate leaves have numerous leaflets sterile flowers in long, simple, solitary lateral catkins, from the wood of the previous year Nut (1) and Seed (2, 8) of European Walnut. each with 12 to 40 stamens; fertile flowers in small clusters on a peduncle at the ends of the branches, each with a four-toothed calyx and four small petals, the ovary with two very Staminate anfd Pistillate Flowers. short styles, and club-shaped, fringed stigmas ; the outer portion of the drupe (epicarp) fleshy and fibrous, not splitting at maturity ; the inner portion or nut (endocarp) irregularly furrowed, and in our species very rough, to which the husk clings at maturity. The hickories are often incorrectly called walnuts. (See HICK- ORY.) Three species of walnut are indigenous to the United States. The black walnut (/. nigrd) is found from New England to Florida, but is much less abundant east than west of the Alleghanies, where, especially in the valley of the Mississippi, it is one of the commonest trees; it is a large, quick -growing tree, and when in a forest has a clear trunk 30 to 50 ft. without a branch, but in open ground it branches low, and forms a wide-spreading head. A celebrated specimen stands on the grounds of W. C. Bryant at Roslyn, L. I., the seed of which is known to have been planted in 1713 ; at 3 ft. from the ground it measures
