[Uralsk] (26), a town, a Cossack centre, on the Ural River, 280 m. from the Caspian Sea, and a place of considerable trade.
[Urania], the muse of astronomy, is represented with a globe in her hand, to which she points with a small rod.
[Uranus], a planet, the outermost but one of the solar system, is 1770 millions of miles from the sun, takes 30,686 of our days, or 84 of our years, to revolve round it, has four times the diameter of the earth, and is accompanied by four moons; it was discovered in 1781 by Herschel, and called by him Georgium Sidus in honour of George III.
[Uranus] (Heaven), in the Greek mythology the son of Gaia (the Earth), and by her the father of the Titans; he hated his children, and at birth thrust them down to Tartarus, to the grief of Gaia, at whose instigation Kronos, the youngest born, unmanned him, and seized the throne of the Universe, to be himself supplanted in turn by his son Zeus.
[Urban], the name of eight Popes: Urban I., Pope from 223 to 230; Urban II., Pope from 1088 to 1099, warm promoter of the first Crusade; Urban III., Pope from 1185 to 1187; Urban IV., Pope from 1261 to 1264; Urban V., Pope from 1362 to 1370, man of an ascetic temper; Urban VI., Pope from 1378 to 1389, in his reign the schism in the papacy began which lasted 40 years; Urban VII., Pope in 1590; and Urban VIII., Pope from 1623 to 1644, founded the College de Propaganda Fide.
[Urbino], an ancient town of Central Italy, 20 m. SW. of Pesaro; was once the capital of a duchy; is the seat of an archbishop, and was the birthplace of Raphael.
[Uri] (17), a Swiss canton N. of Unterwalden; is almost entirely pastoral; is overlooked by Mount St. Gothard; Altdorf is the capital.
[Urim and Thummim], two ornaments attached to the breastplate of the Jewish high-priest which, when consulted by him, at times gave mysteriously oracular responses.
[Urquhart, Sir Thomas], of Cromarty, a cavalier and supporter of Charles I., and a great enemy of the Covenanters in Scotland; travelled much, and acquired a mass of miscellaneous knowledge, which he was fain to display and did display in a most pedantic style; posed as a philologist and a mathematician, but executed one classical work, a translation of Rabelais; is said to have died in a fit of laughter at the news of the restoration of Charles II. (1605-1660).
[Ursa Major], the Greater Bear, a well-known constellation in the northern hemisphere, called also the Plough, the Wagon, or Charles's Wain, consists of seven bright stars, among others three of which are known as the "handle" of the Plough, and two as the pointers, so called as pointing to the pole-star.