Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/782

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754 WYTIIE XAVIER Iron mountain on the south and "Walker's mountain on the northwest, and the soil is generally fertile. Iron ore, lead, bituminous coal, limestone, and gypsum are very abundant, and there are traces of silver found in the lead mines. It is intersected by the Atlantic, Mis- sissippi, and Ohio railroad. The chief pro- ductions in 1870 were 71,918 bushels of wheat, 17,913 of rye, 115,175 of Indian corn, 79,234 of oats, 17,057 of potatoes, 86,144 Ibs. of but- ter, 19,827 of wool, and 4,445 tons of hay. There were 2,176 horses, 2,376 milch cows, 5,550 other cattle, 7,442 sheep, and 8,160 swine; 3 manufactories of pig iron, 1 of pig lead, and 6 flour mills. Capital, Wytheville. WYTIIE, George, a signer of the American Declaration of Independence, born in Eliza- beth City co., Va., in 1726, died in Richmond, June 8, 1806. He was admitted to the bar in 1757, and in 1758 was elected to the Virginia house of burgesses, by which he was appointed in 1764 on the committee to prepare a petition to the king, a memorial to the house of lords, and a remonstrance to the house of commons against the proposed stamp act, the last of which he wrote. He was a member of the continental congress in 1775-'7, and in 1776 was one of the committee to revise the laws of Virginia. In 1777 he was chosen speaker of the house of delegates, and was appointed a judge of the high court of chancery ; and on the reorganization of that court he became sole chancellor, which office he held till his death. He was professor of law in William and Mary college from 1779 to 1789. In the latter part of bis life he emancipated his slaves and furnished them means of subsistence. He died suddenly from accidental poisoning. He was the author of " Decisions by the High Court of Chancery" (1795; 2d ed., with a memoir by B. B. Minor, 1852). WYTTENBACIl, Daniel, a Dutch philologist, born in Bern, Switzerland, Aug. 7, 1746, died in South Holland, Jan. 17, 1820. He studied philology at Marburg, Gottirigen, and Ley- den, and in 1771 became professor of Greek and subsequently of philosophy at Amster- dam, and in 1799 of eloquence at Leyden. He edited Plato's Phado and Plutarch's Moralia and Animadversions*. His other works in- clude Preecepta Philosophic Logic (Amster- dam, 1782); Bibliotheca Critica (3 vols., 1777- 1808); Philomathia, sive Miscellanea Doctrina (3 vols., 1809-'17); Vita Ruhnkenii (Leydeu, 1800); and Opuseula VariiAr<fumenti(2vo]8., 1821). Mahne has edited his select corre- spondence, entitled pistolarum Selectarum Fasciculi tres (Ghent, 1830). XTHE 24th letter of the English alpha- . bet. It represents in English, and gener- ally in French also, the combined sounds of en as in the word texture, and of gs as in the word example, except at the beginning of words, where it has the sound of z. Its form and position in the alphabet are apparently bor- rowed from those of the Greek %> while its sound is that of , the 14th letter of the Greek alphabet. In Italian it is not used, and < be- in? substituted for it, as in esatto, exact, eccel- lente, excellent. In Spanish it has at the end of syllables the same value as in English ; at their beginning it is, like the Spanish j, a gut- tural, nearly equivalent to the German ch. In Portuguese it represents several sounds, but most frequently that of the English .-//. In Russian the X represents the sound, as it re- tains the character, of the Greek . As a Latin numeral, X stands for 10; tho Greek f stood for 60, and x f r 600. XALAPA. See JALAPA. XALISOO. See JALISCO. XAYnilMC, a compound often found in urinary calculi, discovered by Marcet in a cal- culus weighing only 8 grs. According to Soherer, xanthine is a normal constituent of the body of many animals. He has found it in the urine of man, in the pancreas, spleen, and liver of oxen, in the thymus gland of the calf, and in the muscular flesh of. the ox, the horse, and fishes. The formula of xanthine is CH 4 N 4 O. It may be artificially produced from uric acid, from which it differs only by one atom of oxygen, by the action of sodium amal- gam, and from guanine by the action of nitric acid. It is nearly insoluble in cold water, sparingly soluble in boiling water, and insolu- ble in alcohol and ether. When heated in the air it burns with the smell of burnt hair. It unites with both acids and bases, forming usu- ally crystallizable compounds. XANTHIPPE. See SOCRATES.

M HOKimmu:. a yellow coloring mat- 

ter obtained from Persian or Turkey berries, the seeds of rhftmmis amygdalinus, It. oleoZdes, R. saxatilis, and R. infectoriut. According to Kane, its formula is Cmll^On, and it occurs only in the ripe seeds, being formed by the decomposition of chrysorhamnine contained in the unripe seeds. It may be also formed by boiling the unripe berries in water. It forms precipitates with the alkaline-earth metals, and alnminio and stannic salts. It dyes fab- rics mordanted with alumina a fine yellow, and those mordanted with iron salts black. XANTHIS, a town of Lycia. See LYCIA. XAVIER, Saint Francis (FRANCISCO DK XAVIER), a Spanish missionary, called the apostle of the Indies, born at the castle of Xavier, near