[Oaks, The], one of the three great classic races in England, run at Epsom; established by the 12th Earl of Derby in 1779 for fillies of 3 years old.
[Oakum], name given to fibres of old tarry ropes sundered by teasing, and employed in caulking the seams between planks in ships; the teasing of oakum is an occupation for prisoners in jails.
[Oases], fertile spots in a desert due to the presence of springs or water near at hand underground; met with in the deserts of North Africa, Arabia, and Gobi.
[Oates, Titus], fabricator of a Popish plot for the overthrow of the Protestant faith in England, the allegation of which brought to the block several innocent men; rewarded at first with a pension and safe lodgment in Westminster Hall, was afterwards convicted of perjury, flogged, and imprisoned for Life, but at the revolution was set at liberty and granted a pension of £300 (1650-1705).
[Obadiah], a Hebrew prophet who appears to have lived about 588 B.C., shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, at which the Edomites had assisted, and whose prophecy was written to assure the exiles in Babylon that the judgment of God had gone forth against Edom, and that with the execution of it Israel would be restored.
[Oban] (5), a modern town situated in the W. of Argyllshire, on a land-locked bay opening off the Firth of Lorne, is the capital, sometimes called the "Queen," of the Western Highlands, and a fashionable tourist resort; it has excellent railway and steamboat communications, 30 hotels, and has near it two ruined castles, an ancient cave dwelling, and much beautiful scenery; Dunstaffnage Castle is 4 m. to the N. of it, where the early Scottish kings used to be crowned.
[Obeid] (35), in the Eastern Soudan, 220 m. SW. of Khartoum, is the capital of Kordofan; was the scene in November 1883 of the annihilation by the forces of the Mahdi, after three days' fighting, of an Egyptian army under Hicks Pasha and other English officers; its trade consists of ivory, gold, feathers, and gum.
[Obelisk], a tall four-sided pillar, generally monolithic, tapering to a pyramidal pointed top, erected in connection with temples in Egypt, and inscribed all over with hieroglyphs, and in memorial, as is likely, of some historical personage or event; they are of ancient date.
[Ober-Ammergau], a small village in Bavaria, 45 m. SW. of Münich; famed for the Passion Play performed there by the peasants, some 500 in number, every ten years, which attracts a great many spectators to the spot; the play was instituted in 1634 in token of gratitude for the abatement of a plague.
[Oberlin, Jean Friedrich], a benevolent Protestant pastor, born at Strasburg; laboured all his life at Ban de la Roche, a wild mountain district of Alsace, and devoted himself with untiring zeal to the spiritual and material welfare of the people, which they rewarded with their pious gratitude and warmest affection.