KANKAKEE, kăṉ′kȧ-kē′. One of the two rivers whose junction in Grundy County, Illinois, forms the Illinois River (Map: Illinois, D 2). It rises near the northern boundary of Indiana, and flows west-southwest, past the city of Kankakee, Ill., to its junction with the Des Plaines.
KANKAKEE. A city and the county-seat of Kankakee County, Ill., 50 miles south of Chicago; on the Kankakee River, and on the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Saint Louis, the Illinois Central, the Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, and other railroads (Map: Illinois, E 2). The river, broad and deep at this point, furnishes excellent water-power, which is used for manufacturing purposes, as well as for generating electricity for city lighting and the operation of street railways. The most important manufactures are plows, buggies, starch, and iron beds. There are also carriage and wagon factories, grain-elevators, stone-quarries, household furnishings, and ornament works, brick and tile works, and establishments producing nails, foundry and machine-shop products, wire, flour, mattresses, cigars, etc. Kankakee has also considerable commercial importance as a distributing centre. The Eastern Illinois Hospital for the Insane, accommodating 2300 patients, is situated here. Other fine structures are the arcade and opera-house, public library, high school, county jail, Conservatory of Music, and Y. M. C. A. building. Electric and Athletic parks are the two principal pleasure-grounds. At Bourbonnais Grove, a suburb three miles distant, is Saint Viateur's College, with about 300 students, one of the most prominent Roman Catholic divinity schools in the West. Settled in 1853, Kankakee was incorporated in the following year. The government, as provided by the charter of 1892, revised in 1895, is vested in a mayor, chosen every two years; a unicameral council, which elects boards of health and of local improvements and the customary administrative officials. Population, in 1890, 9025; in 1900, 13,595.
KANNEGIESSER, kän′ne-gē′sẽr, Karl Friedrich Ludwig (1781-1861). A German author, translator, and critic. He was born at Wendemark, and was educated at Halle. He translated Beaumont and Fletcher (1808), the Divina Commedia (5th ed. 1873), Dante's lyrics (2d ed. 1842), and many others, ranging from Horace's Odes, Anacreon, and Sappho to Chaucer, Byron, and Scott. He was also famed as an exegete of Goethe, and edited with valuable notes a selection from that author's lyrical verse (1835).
KANO, kä′nō̇. The name of a province and its capital in the Kingdom of Sokoto, now a part of the British North Nigeria, in West Africa. The district lies between the Niger and Bornu. It is rich in tropical fruits, and is perhaps the most pleasing part of equatorial Africa. There are about 400,000 inhabitants—Fuians, Hausas, and slaves. Kano, the capital, lies 230 miles southeast of the city of Sokoto (Map: Africa, E 3). It is an important trading point, being visited by merchants from the northern countries of Africa and even from Arabia. A blue cotton material made by the natives is a prominent article of export. Sandals, shoes, weapons, grain, leather goods, and indigo are also heavily dealt in, as well as kola-nuts, and saltpetre, ivory, and ostrich-feathers. Population probably about 50,000.
KANSAS. (Named after the Kansas Indians, called by themselves Kanze, a word said to refer to the wind; popularly known as the ‘Sunflower State’). One of the North Central States of the United States. It lies exactly in the centre of the country, between 94° 37′ and 102° west longitude; its north and south boundaries are formed, respectively, by the 40th and the 37th parallels. The State is bounded on the north by Nebraska, on the east by Missouri, on the south by Indian Territory and Oklahoma, and on the west by Colorado. It has the form of a parallelogram with straight sides, except at the northeastern corner, which is cut off by the Missouri River. Its dimensions are 408 miles from east to west, and 208 miles from north to south; its area is 82,080 square miles, giving it the tenth rank in size among the States of the Union.
Topography. Kansas lies within the Great Plains, which stretch in a broad belt from the Missouri River to the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. Its surface rises gradually from an altitude of 750 feet in the extreme eastern part to about 4000 feet on the western boundary. The average altitude is about 2000 feet, the contour line for that height crossing the State a little to the west of the centre. The highest point is in the extreme west—4440 feet. There are no eminences rising more than 500 feet above the general level. However, the surface cannot be called flat; it is on the whole a gently rolling prairie, diversified in some places with low hills. Erosion has changed the contour considerably, many of the rivers flowing through wide valleys of their own making. The broad bottom-lands of the Missouri in the northeastern comer are lined with bluffs 200 feet high, and similar but smaller bluffs are found along many other streams, especially in the northern half of the State; in some places these bluffs form even cañon-like gorges. In the southwestern corner, south of the Arkansas River, is a stretch of shifting sand-dunes about 100 miles long and several miles wide.
As is indicated by the general land slope, practically all the rivers of Kansas, except the small secondary tributaries, flow eastward; and, owing to the regular decline in elevation, the drainage is so perfect that there are no marshy tracts and no lakes of any size in the State. The two principal drainage systems are those of the Kansas River in the north and the Arkansas in the south, the former joining the Missouri on the northeastern boundary, the latter turning southeastward and leaving the State through the southern boundary. The principal tributary systems of the Kansas are those of its two headstreams, the Republican River, which enters the State from Nebraska, and the Smoky Hill River, which, with its two chief affluents, the Solomon and the Saline, drains the whole northwestern quarter of the State. The tributaries of the Arkansas within the State are mostly small streams, but the southeastern corner is drained by the large Neosho River and its main affluent, the Verdigris, which flow southward and enter the Arkansas in Indian Territory.
The forested area of Kansas, like that of the other States in the Great Plains, is inconsider-
