Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/46

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

KOMORN KONIEH often 40 ft. wide, 60 deep, and 20 high, with sleeping apartments arranged at the sides. Their canoes are dugouts, 45 ft. long, orna- mented with carvings, and there are generally curiously carved posts in front of the houses. Their 'baidarkas, or skin boats, are inferior to those of the Esquimaux. They burn the dead, preserving their ashes in wooden boxes or tombs, curiously decorated. The Koloshes were visited by Behring in 1741, but they captured and destroyed two of his boats with their crews. During the absence of Baranov, the founder of Sitka, from that post in 1800, the Koloshes attacked it and murdered most of the garrison ; but Baranov, aided by Krusenstern's fleet, punished them. They continued hostile, and Sitka required a palisade. Their numbers are estimated at about 12,000. KOHOR. See COMOBX. KONG, a mountain range of TV. Africa, run- ning E. and W. nearly parallel with the coast, on the N. frontier of Upper Guinea, and ter- minating on the Atlantic in a number of prom- ontories, the principal of which are Capes Verga and Sierra Leone. Its E. termination is not defined. Du Chaillu extends the name to the mountains which, connecting with those just described near the . river Niger, extend southward, in a direction generally parallel to the coast of Lower Guinea, and send off sev- eral branches toward the sea. One of these ramifications, the Serra do Cristal, extends from near Fernando Po island to the river Muni in lat. 1 N., and then returning inland rejoins the main range. Further inland, according to Du Chaillu, another offset called the Nkoomoo- Nabooalee mountains runs E. and W. The Kong mountains are very imperfectly known. The W. division does not exceed 2,500 ft. in average height, but in some places is believed to reach the limit of perpetual snow. Granite, marble, and limestone are the prevailing rocks. KONGSBERG, a town of Norway, in the prov- ince and 45 m. S. W. of the city of Christiania, at the foot of the Jonsknuden mountain, and near the Larbrofos waterfall, on the Laagen river; pop. about 5,000. It contains a hand- some church, and is renowned for its silver mines, the only ones in Norway. They were discovered in 1623, and are worked by the gov- ernment, which has established here the mint and mining department, powder mills, and smelting works for manufacturing cobalt and reducing and refining the silver ore. The an- nual yield of silver exceeds 30,000 Ibs. A specimen of native silver found in the principal mine, which is 180 fathoms deep, measuring 6 ft. long, 2 ft. broad, and 8 in. thick, is in the Copenhagen museum ; and other enormous masses have been found at various times. KOMEII, or koniali (anc. Iconium), a city of Asia Minor, capital of the vilayet of its name, about 280 m. S. E. of Constantinople; pop. about 40,000. The stout walls which surround Konieh. it were built from the ruins of ancient Iconium by the Seljuk sovereigns, and display some in- teresting Greek inscriptions and other relics which were so arranged in the mason work as to remain visible. Of more than 100 mosques which the city contains, 12 are large, and two are much admired for their magnificence. It has also several medreses or colleges, and the tomb of Mevlevi Jelal ed-Din, a Mussulman saint much revered throughout Turkey and the founder of the Mevlevi or whirling der- vishes. This tomb is surmounted by a dome resting upon a cylindrical tower of a bright green color, and is an object of pilgrimage. -Beyond the walls are suburbs as populous as the town itself. There are extensive gardens, and the surrounding country is in a high state ol cultivation, supplying grain and flax in abundance. Like all Turkish towns renowned tor superior sanctity, Konieh is full of der-