Page 2026 : VISIGOTHS — VOICE
and Siva, the destroyer. In the Rig-Veda, a sacred book of the Hindus, he is considered to represent the sun. In his character as preserver of the world he has descended several times, to set it right. These appearances are called avatars, in which the god is supposed to have taken the form of some animal, god or man. There usually are ten of these avatars mentioned, such as the man, the lion, the fish, the dwarf, the Buddha. One more appearance is looked for, when the close of the present age shall be nigh. Vishnu is represented with four hands, holding a shell to be blown in battle; a disc, an emblem of power; a mace, a symbol of punishment; and either a lotus flower or a sword. He is sometimes represented floating on a serpent, seated on a throne, or riding on an animal half bird and half man. Consult Moor’s Hindu Pantheon.
Vis′igoths. See Goths.
Vision (vĭzh′ŭn). See Eye.
Vis′tula, a river of Europe which rises in Austrian Silesia and, crossing Russian Poland and Prussia, flows into the Baltic Sea at Dantzic. It is navigable to Cracow, 550 miles, and 100 miles below its source. At Vistula in Silesia there are falls of 200 feet.
Vladimir (vlăd′ĭ-mḗr) the Great, a Russian ruler, who reigned from 980 to 1015. He added largely to the kingdom by conquest, but is best known for the introduction of Christianity into the Empire. He embraced the doctrines of the Greek church, and was baptized at Constantinople in 988, the day after his marriage to the sister of the Byzantine emperor. He died in 1015.
Vladivostok (vlȧdyḗ-vȧs-tôk′) the chief naval station of Russia in Siberia, is on the Gulf of Peter the Great in the Sea of Japan. It is situated on the point of a peninsula called the Golden Horn, on a strait named the Eastern Bosporus, with one of the finest harbors in the world. The climate is severe, but the gulf is frozen only along the shores, even in December. The navy workshops have been established at Vladivostok, which, with the discovery of gold in the neighborhood, has increased the importance of the place. Some 3,000 or 4,000 Koreans are employed in gathering seaweed, which is sent to the Chinese markets. The city is connected by submarine cable with Nagasaki and Shanghai; and in 1897 that section of the great Siberian railway (q. v.) was completed which brought Vladivostok into communication with the rest of the Russian empire. There also is a series of military posts and telegraph lines. Population 90,162.
Vo′cal Mem′non. On the western side of the Nile near the temple of Luxor we find the ruins of the Memnonium or great temple of Arnenophis III. Very little is left; but two huge, seated colossi 60 feet high of Arnenophis III still remain in defiant grandeur. These statues attracted little or no attention until 276. C., when the upper part of one was broken off by an earthquake, and after that it was observed that the remaining bulk gave forth a prolonged wail when wet with morning dew and warmed by the rays of the rising sun. The vocal Memnon became a great factor in Greek mythology, as the Greeks and Romans were frequent travelers in Egypt in those days. See Temple of Karnak and Temple of Luxor.
Vogt (fōgt), Karl, a German naturalist, was born at Giessen, July 5, 1817. At Neufchatel he studied natural history for five years under Agassiz. He was made professor of natural history at Giessen in 1847, but lost his position and had to leave Germany because of his zeal in the revolutionary movements of 1848. In 1849 he was made professor of geology at Geneva, and held that position to the time of his death, May 6, 1895. He claims to have written the first volume and a part of the second of Agassiz’s Natural History of Fresh-Water Fishes. He also wrote Studies in Geology and Petrifactions; Man, His Place in Creation and in the History of the Earth; Essays on the Darwinian Theory; works on physiology, zoology, anthropology and geology; and many scientific papers. His work on Faith and Science, published in 1855, is best known, and has been severely criticised for its supposed atheistic tendencies.
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