(D. H.)
KEITH, a police burgh of Banffshire, Scotland, on the Isla, 53¼ m. N.W. of Aberdeen by the Great North of Scotland railway. Pop. (1901), 4753. A branch of the Highland railway also gives access to Elgin, and there is a line to Buckie and Portessie on the Moray Firth. The burgh includes Old Keith and New Keith on the east bank of the Isla, and Fife-Keith on the west bank. Though Old Keith has a charter dating from William the Lion it fell into gradual decay; New Keith, founded in the 18th century by the second earl of Seafield, being better situated for the growth of a town. Fife-Keith has sprung up since 1816. The principal public buildings include the Turner memorial hospital, the Longmore hall, and the Institute. In the Roman Catholic church there is a painting of the “Incredulity of St Thomas,” presented by Charles X. of France. The industries include manufactures of tweeds, blankets, agricultural implements, and boots and shoes; there are also distilleries, breweries, flour mills, and lime and manure works. But the main importance of Keith lies in the fact that it is the centre of the agricultural trade of the shire. The “Summer Eve Fair” held in September is the largest cattle and horse fair in the north of Scotland; the town is also the headquarters of the dressed-meat trade in the north.
KEJ, or Kech, the chief place in a district of the province of Makran in Baluchistan, which has given its name to Kej-Makran, as distinguished from Persian Makran. There is no town, but a number of small villages dominated by a fort built upon a rock, on the eastern bank of the Kej River. This fort, like many others similarly placed throughout the country, is supposed to be impregnable, but is of no strength except against the matchlocks of the surrounding tribes. Kej (or Kiz) was an important trade centre in the days of Arab supremacy in Sind, and the rulers of Kalat at various times marched armies into the province with a view to maintaining their authority. At the beginning of the 19th century it had the reputation of a commercial centre, trading through Panjgur with Kandahar, with Karachi via Bela, and with Muscat and the Persian Gulf by the seaport of Gwadar, distant about 80 m. The present Khan of Kalat exercises but a feeble sway over this portion of his dominion, although he appoints a governor to the province. The principal tribe residing around Kej is that of the Gichki, who claim to be of Rajput origin, and to have settled in Makran during the 17th century, having been driven out of Rajputana. The climate during summer is too hot for Europeans. During winter, however, it is temperate. The principal exports consist of dates, which are considered of the finest quality. A local revolt against Kalat rendered an expedition against Kej necessary in 1898. Colonel Mayne reduced the fortress and restored order in the surrounding districts.
KEKULÉ, FRIEDRICH AUGUST (1829-1896), German chemist, was born at Darmstadt on the 7th of September 1829. While studying architecture at Giessen he came under the influence of Liebig and was induced to take up chemistry. From Giessen he went to Paris, and then, after a short sojourn in Switzerland, he visited England. Both in Paris and in England he enjoyed personal intercourse with the leading chemists of the period. On his return to Germany he started a small chemical laboratory at Heidelberg, where, with a very slender equipment, he carried out several important researches. In 1858 he was appointed professor of chemistry at Ghent, and in 1865 was called to Bonn to fill a similar position, which he held till his death in that town on the 13th of June 1896. Kekulé’s main importance lies in the far-reaching contributions which he made to chemical theory, especially in regard to the constitution of the carbon compounds. The doctrine of atomicity had already been enunciated by E. Frankland, when in 1858 Kekulé published a paper in which, after giving reasons for regarding carbon as a tetravalent element, he set forth the essential features of his famous doctrine of the linking of atoms. He explained that in substances containing several carbon atoms it must be assumed that some of the affinities of each carbon atom are bound by the affinities of the atoms of other elements contained in the substance, and some by an equal number of the affinities of the other carbon atoms. The simplest case is when two carbon atoms are combined so that one affinity of the one is tied to one affinity of the other; two, therefore, of the affinities of the two atoms are occupied in keeping the two atoms together, and only the remaining six are available for atoms of other elements. The next simplest case consists in the mutual interchange of two affinity units, and so on. This conception led Kekulé to his “closed-chain” or “ring” theory of the constitution of benzene which has been called the “most brilliant piece of prediction to be found in the whole range of organic chemistry,” and this in turn led in particular to the elucidation of the constitution of the “aromatic compounds,” and in general to new methods of chemical synthesis and decomposition, and to a deeper insight into the composition of numberless organic bodies and their mutual relations. Professor F. R. Japp, in the Kekulé memorial lecture he delivered before the London Chemical Society on the 15th of December 1897, declared that three-fourths of modern organic chemistry is directly or indirectly the product of Kekulé’s benzene theory, and that without its guidance and inspiration the industries of the coal-tar colours and artificial therapeutic agents in their present form and extension would have been inconceivable.
Many of Kekulé’s papers appeared in the Annalen der Chemie, of which he was editor, and he also published an important work, Lehrbuch der organischen Chemie, of which the first three volumes are dated 1861, 1866 and 1882, while of the fourth only one small section was issued in 1887.
KELLER, ALBERT (1845- ), German painter, was born at Gais, in Switzerland; he studied at the Munich Academy under Lenbach and Ramberg, and must be counted among the leading colourists of the modern German school. Travels in Italy, France, England and Holland, and a prolonged sojourn in Paris, helped to develop his style, which is marked by a sense of elegance and refinement all too rare in German art. His scenes of society life, such as the famous “Dinner” (1890), are painted with thoroughly Parisian esprit, and his portraits are marked by the same elegant distinction. He is particularly successful in the rendering of rustling silk and satin dresses and draperies. His historical and imaginative works are as modern in spirit and as unacademical as his portraits. At the Munich Pinakothek is his painting “Jairi Töchterlein” (1886), whilst the Königsberg Museum contains his “Roman Bath,” and the Liebieg collection in Reichenberg the “Audience with Louis XV.,” the first picture that drew attention to his talent. Among other important works he painted “Faustina in the Temple of Juno at Praeneste,” “The Witches’ Sleep” (1888), “The Judgment of Paris,” “The Happy Sister,” “Temptation” (1892), “Autumn” (1893), “An Adventure” (1896), and “The Crucifixion.”