Part 34

KOVALEVSKY, SOPHIE (1850-1891), Russian mathematician, daughter of General Corvin-Krukovsky, was born at Moscow on the 15th of January 1850. As a young girl she was fired by the aspiration after intellectual liberty that animated so many young Russian women at that period, and drove them to study at foreign universities, since their own were closed to them. This led her, in 1868, to contract one of those conventional marriages in vogue at the time, with a young student, Waldemar Kovalevsky, and the two went together to Germany to continue their studies. In 1869 she went to Heidelberg, where she studied under H. von Helmholtz, G. R. Kirchhoff, L. Königsberger and P. du Bois-Reymond, and from 1871-1874 read privately with Karl Weierstrass at Berlin, as the public lectures were not then open to women. In 1874 the university of Göttingen granted her a degree _in absentia_, excusing her from the oral examination on account of the remarkable excellence of the three dissertations sent in, one of which, on the theory of partial differential equations, is one of her most remarkable works. Another was an elucidation of P. S. Laplace's mathematical theory of the form of Saturn's rings. Soon after this she returned to Russia with her husband, who was appointed professor of palaeontology at Moscow, where he died in 1883. At this time Madame Kovalevsky was at Stockholm, where Gustaf Mittag Leffler, also a pupil of Weierstrass, who had been recently appointed to the chair of mathematics at the newly founded university, had procured for her a post as lecturer. She discharged her duties so successfully that in 1884 she was appointed full professor. This post she held till her death on the 10th of February 1891. In 1888 she achieved the greatest of her successes, gaining the Prix Bordin offered by the Paris Academy. The problem set was "to perfect in one important point the theory of the movement of a solid body round an immovable point," and her solution added a result of the highest interest to those transmitted to us by Leonhard Euler and J. L. Lagrange. So remarkable was this work that the value of the prize was doubled as a recognition of unusual merit. Unfortunately Madame Kovalevsky did not live to reap the full reward of her labours, for she died just as she had attained the height of her fame and had won recognition even in her own country by election to membership of the St Petersburg Academy of Science.

See E. de Kerbedz, "Sophie de Kowalevski," _Benidiconti del circolo mathematico di Palermo_ (1891); the obituary notice by G. Mittag Leffler in the _Acta mathematica_, vol. xvi.; and J. C. Poggendorff, _Biographisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch_.

KOVNO (in Lithuanian _Kauna_), a government of north-western Russia, bounded N. by the governments of Courland and Vitebsk, S.E. by that of Vilna, and S. and S.W. by Suwalki and the province of East Prussia, a narrow strip touching the Baltic near Memel. It has an area of 15,687 sq. m. The level uniformity of its surface is broken only by two low ridges which nowhere rise above 800 ft. The geological character is varied, the Silurian, Devonian, Jurassic and Tertiary systems being all represented; the Devonian is that which occurs most frequently, and all are covered with Quaternary boulder-clays. The soil is either a sandy clay or a more fertile kind of black earth. The government is drained by the Niemen, Windau, Courland Aa and Dvina, which have navigable tributaries. In the flat depressions covered with boulder-clays there are many lakes and marshes, while forests occupy about 25½% of the surface. The climate is comparatively mild, the mean temperature at the city of Kovno being 44°F. The population was 1,156,040 in 1870, and 1,553,244 in 1897. The estimated population in 1906 was 1,683,600. It is varied, consisting of Lithuanians proper and Zhmuds (together 74%), Jews (14%), Germans (2½%), Poles (9%), with Letts and Russians; 76.6% are Roman Catholics, 13.7% Jews, 4.5% Protestants, and 5% belong to the Greek Church. Of the total 788,102 were women in 1897 and 147,878 were classed as urban. The principal occupation of the inhabitants is agriculture, 63% of the surface being under crops; both grain (wheat, rye, oats and barley) and potatoes are exported. Flax is cultivated and the linseed exported. Dairying flourishes, and horse and cattle breeding are attracting attention. Fishing is important, and the navigation on the rivers is brisk. A variety of petty domestic industries are carried on by the Jews, but only to a slight extent in the villages. As many as 18,000 to 24,000 men are compelled every year to migrate in search of work. The factories consist principally of distilleries, tobacco and steam flour-mills, and hardware manufactories. Trade, especially the transit trade, is brisk, from the situation of the government on the Prussian frontier, the custom-houses of Yerburg and Tauroggen being amongst the most important in Russia. The chief towns of the seven districts into which the government is divided, with their populations in 1897, are Kovno (q.v.), Novo-Alexandrovsk (6370), Ponevyezh (13,044), Rosieny (7455), Shavli (15,914), Telshi (6215) and Vilkemir (13,509).

The territory which now constitutes the government of Kovno was formerly known as Samogitia and formed part of Lithuania. During the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries the Livonian and Teutonic Knights continually invaded and plundered it, especially the western part, which was peopled with Zhmuds. In 1569 it was annexed, along with the rest of the principality of Lithuania, to Poland; and it suffered very much from the wars of Russia with Sweden and Poland, and from the invasion of Charles XII. in 1701. In 1795 the principality of Lithuania was annexed to Russia, and until 1872, when the government of Kovno was constituted, the territory now forming it was a part of the government of Vilna.

KOVNO, a town and fortress of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, stands at the confluence of the Niemen with the Viliya, 550 m. S.W. of St Petersburg by rail, and 55 m. from the Prussian frontier. Pop. (1863), 23,937; (1903), 73,743, nearly one-half being Jews. It consists of a cramped Old Town and a New Town stretching up the side of the Niemen. It is a first-class fortress, being surrounded at a mean distance of 2½ m. by a girdle of forts, eleven in number. The town lies for the most part in the fork and is guarded by three forts in the direction of Vilna, one covers the Vilna bridge, while the southern approaches are protected by seven. Kovno commands and bars the railway Vilna-Eydtkuhnen. Its factories produce nails, wire-work and other metal goods, mead and bone-meal. It is an important entrepôt for timber, cereals, flax, flour, spirits, bone-meal, fish, coal and building-stone passing from and to Prussia. The city possesses some 15th-century churches. It was founded in the 11th century; and from 1384 to 1398 belonged to the Teutonic Knights. Tsar Alexis of Russia plundered and burnt it in 1655. Here the Russians defeated the Poles on the 26th of June 1831.

KOVROV, a town of Russia, in the government of Vladimir, 40 m. N.E. of the city of Vladimir by the railway from Moscow to Nizhniy-Novgorod, and on the Klyazma River. It has railway-carriage works, cotton mills, steam flour mills, tallow works and quarries of limestone, and carries on an active trade in the export of wooden wares and in the import of grain, salt and fish, brought from the Volga governments. Pop. (1890), 6600; (1900), 16,806.

KOWTOW, or KOTOU, the Chinese ceremonial act of prostration as a sign of homage, submission, or worship. The word is formed from _ko_, knock, and _tou_, head. To the emperor, the "kowtow" is performed by kneeling three times, each act accompanied by touching the ground with the forehead.

KOZLOV, a town of Russia, in the government of Tambov, on the Lyesnoi Voronezh River, 45 m. W.N.W. of the city of Tambov by rail. Pop. (1900), 41,555. Kozlov had its origin in a small monastery, founded in the forest in 1627; nine years later, an earthwork was raised close by, for the protection of the Russian frontier against the Tatars. Situated in a very fertile country, on the highway to Astrakhan and at the head of water communication with the Don, the town soon became a centre of trade; as the junction of the railways leading to the Sea of Azov, to Tsaritsyn on the lower Volga, to Saratov and to Orel, its importance has recently been still further increased. Its export of cattle, grain, meat, eggs (22,000,000), tallow, hides, &c., is steadily growing, and it possesses factories, flour mills, tallow works, distilleries, tanneries and glue works.

KRAAL, also spelt _craal_, _kraul_, &c. (South African Dutch, derived possibly from a native African word, but probably from the Spanish _corral_, Portuguese _curral_, an enclosure for horses, cattle and the like), in South and Central Africa, a native village surrounded by a palisade, mud wall or other fencing roughly circular in form; by transference, the community living within the enclosure. Folds for animals and enclosures made specially for defensive purposes are also called kraals.

KRAFFT (or KRAFT), ADAM (c. 1455-1507), German sculptor, of the Nuremberg school, was born, probably at Nuremberg, about the middle of the 15th century, and died, some say in the hospital, at Schwabach, about 1507. He seems to have emerged as sculptor about 1490, the date of the seven reliefs of scenes from the life of Christ, which, like almost every other specimen of his work, are at Nuremberg. The date of his last work, an Entombment, with fifteen life-size figures, in the Holzschuher chapel of the St John's cemetery, is 1507. Besides these, Krafft's chief works are several monumental reliefs in the various churches of Nuremberg; he produced the great Schreyer monument (1492) for St Sebald's at Nuremberg, a skilful though mannered piece of sculpture opposite the Rathaus, with realistic figures in the costume of the time, carved in a way more suited to wood than stone, and too pictorial in effect; Christ bearing the Cross, above the altar of the same church; and various works made for public and private buildings, as the relief over the door of the Wagehaus, a St George and the Dragon, several Madonnas, and some purely decorative pieces, as coats of arms. His masterpiece is perhaps the magnificent tabernacle, 62 ft. high, in the church of St Laurence (1493-1500). He also made the great tabernacle for the Host, 80 ft. high, covered with statuettes, in Ulm Cathedral, and the very spirited "Stations of the Cross" on the road to the Nuremberg cemetery.

See _Adam Krafft und seine Schule_, by Friedrich Wanderer (1869); _Adam Krafft und die Künstler seiner Zeit_, by Berthold Daun (1897); Albert Gümbel in _Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft_, Bd. xxv. Heft 5, 1902.

KRAGUYEVATS (also written KRAGUIEVATZ and KRAGUJEVAC), the capital of the Kraguyevats department of Servia; situated 59 m. S.S.W. of Belgrade, in a valley of the Shumadia, or "forest-land," and on the Lepenitsa, a small stream flowing north-east to join the Morava. On the opposite bank stands the picturesque hamlet of Obilichevo, with a large powder factory. Kraguyevats itself is the main arsenal of Servia, and possesses an iron-foundry and a steam flour-mill. It is the seat of the district prefecture, of a tribunal, of a fine library, and of a large garrison. It boasts the finest college building and the finest modern cathedral (in Byzantine style) in Servia. In the first years of Servia's autonomy under Prince Milosh, it was the residence of the prince and the seat of government (1818-1839). Even later, between 1868 and 1880, the national assembly (_Narodna Skupshtina_) usually met there. In 1885 it was connected by a branch line (Kraguyevats-Lapovo) with the principal railway (Belgrade-Nish), and thenceforward the prosperity of the town steadily increased. Pop. (1900), 14,160.

KRAKATOA (KRAKATAO, KRAKATAU), a small volcanic island in Sunda Strait, between the islands of Java and Sumatra, celebrated for its eruption in 1883, one of the most stupendous ever recorded. At some early period a large volcano rose in the centre of the tract where the Sunda Strait now runs. Long before any European had visited these waters an explosion took place by which the mountain was so completely blown away that only the outer portions of its base were left as a broken ring of islands. Subsequent eruptions gradually built up a new series of small cones within the great crater ring. Of these the most important rose to a height of 2623 ft. above the sea and formed the peak of the volcanic island of Krakatoa. But compared with the great neighbouring volcanoes of Java and Sumatra, the islets of the Sunda Strait were comparatively unknown. Krakatoa was uninhabited, and no satisfactory map or chart of it had been made. In 1680 it appears to have been in eruption, when great earthquakes took place and large quantities of pumice were ejected. But the effects of this disturbance had been so concealed by the subsequent spread of tropical vegetation that the very occurrence of the eruption had sometimes been called in question. At last, about 1877, earthquakes began to occur frequently in the Sunda Strait and continued for the next few years. In 1883 the manifestations of subterranean commotion became more decided, for in May Krakatoa broke out in eruption. For some time the efforts of the volcano appear to have consisted mainly in the discharge of pumice and dust, with the usual accompaniment of detonations and earthquakes. But on the 26th of August a succession of paroxysmal explosions began which lasted till the morning of the 28th. The four most violent took place on the morning of the 27th. The whole of the northern and lower portion of the island of Krakatoa, lying within the original crater ring of prehistoric times, was blown away; the northern part of the cone of Rakata almost entirely disappeared, leaving a vertical cliff which laid bare the inner structure of that volcano. Instead of the volcanic island which had previously existed, and rose from 300 to 1400 ft. above the sea, there was now left a submarine cavity, the bottom of which was here and there more than 1000 ft. below the sea-level. This prodigious evisceration was the result of successive violent explosions of the superheated vapour absorbed in the molten magma within the crust of the earth. The vigour and repetition of these explosions, it has been suggested, may have been caused by sudden inrushes of the water of the ocean as the throat of the volcano was cleared and the crater ring was lowered and ruptured. The access of large bodies of cold water to the top of the column of molten lava would probably give rise at once to some minor explosions, and then to a chilling of the surface of the lava and a consequent temporary diminution or even cessation of the volcanic eructations. But until the pent-up water-vapour in the lava below had found relief it would only gather strength until it was able to burst through the chilled crust and overlying water, and to hurl a vast mass of cooled lava, pumice and dust into the air.

The amount of material discharged during the two days of paroxysmal energy was enormous, though there are no satisfactory data for even approximately estimating it. A large cavity was formed where the island had previously stood, and the sea-bottom around this crater was covered with a wide and thick sheet of fragmentary materials. Some of the surrounding islands received such a thick accumulation of ejected stones and dust as to bury their forests and greatly to increase the area of the land. So much was the sea filled up that a number of new islands rose above its level. But a vast body of the fine dust was carried far and wide by aerial currents, while the floating pumice was transported for many hundreds of miles on the surface of the ocean. At Batavia, 100 m. from the centre of eruption, the sky was darkened by the quantity of ashes borne across it, and lamps had to be used in the houses at midday. The darkness even reached as far as Bandong, a distance of nearly 150 miles. It was computed that the column of stones, dust and ashes projected from the volcano shot up into the air for a height of 17 m. or more. The finer particles coming into the higher layers of the atmosphere were diffused over a large part of the surface of the earth, and showed their presence by the brilliant sunset glows to which they gave rise. Within the tropics they were at first borne along by air-currents at an estimated rate of about 73 m. an hour from east to west, until within a period of six weeks they were diffused over nearly the whole space between the latitudes 30° N. and 45° S. Eventually they spread northwards and southwards and were carried over North and South America, Europe, Asia, South Africa and Australasia. In the Old World they spread from the north of Scandinavia to the Cape of Good Hope.

Another remarkable result of this eruption was the world-wide disturbance of the atmosphere. The culminating paroxysm on the morning of the 27th of August gave rise to an atmospheric wave or oscillation, which, travelling outwards from the volcano as a centre, became a great circle at 180° from its point of origin, whence it continued travelling onwards and contracting till it reached a node at the antipodes to Krakatoa. It was then reflected or reproduced, travelling backwards again to the volcano, whence it once more returned in its original direction. "In this manner its repetition was observed not fewer than seven times at many of the stations, four passages having been those of the wave travelling from Krakatoa, and three those of the wave travelling from its antipodes, subsequently to which its traces were lost" (Sir R. Strachey).

The actual sounds of the volcanic explosions were heard over a vast area, especially towards the west. Thus they were noticed at Rodriguez, nearly 3000 English miles away, at Bangkok (1413 m.), in the Philippine Islands (about 1450 m.), in Ceylon (2058 m.) and in West and South Australia (from 1300 to 2250 m.). On no other occasion have sound-waves ever been perceived at anything like the extreme distances to which the detonations of Krakatoa reached.

Not less manifest and far more serious were the effects of the successive explosions of the volcano upon the waters of the ocean. A succession of waves was generated which appear to have been of two kinds, long waves with periods of more than an hour, and shorter but higher waves, with irregular and much briefer intervals. The greatest disturbance, probably resulting from a combination of both kinds of waves, reached a height of about 50 ft. The destruction caused by the rush of such a body of sea-water along the coasts and low islands was enormous. All vessels lying in harbour or near the shore were stranded, the towns, villages and settlements close to the sea were either at once, or by successive inundations, entirely destroyed, and more than 36,000 human beings perished. The sea-waves travelled to vast distances from the centre of propagation. The long wave reached Cape Horn (7818 geographical miles) and possibly the English Channel (11,040 m.). The shorter waves reached Ceylon and perhaps Mauritius (2900 m.).

See R. D. M. Verbeek, _Krakatau_ (Batavia, 1886); "The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena," _Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society_ (London, 1888).

KRAKEN, in Norwegian folk-lore, a sea-monster, believed to haunt the coasts of Norway. It was described in 1752 by the Norwegian bishop Pontoppidan as having a back about a mile and a half round and a body which showed above the sea like an island, and its arms were long enough to enclose the largest ship. The further assertion that the kraken darkened the water around it by an excretion suggests that the myth was based on the appearance of some gigantic cuttle-fish.

See J. Gibson, _Monsters of the Sea_ (1887); A. S. Packard, "Colossal Cuttle-fishes," _American Naturalist_ (Salem, 1873), vol. vii.; A. E. Verrill, "The Colossal Cephalopods of the Western Atlantic," in _American Naturalist_ (Salem, 1875), vol. ix.; and "Gigantic Squids," in _Trans. of Connecticut Academy_ (1879), vol. v.

KRALYEVO (sometimes written KRALJEVO or KRALIEVO), a city of Servia, and capital of a department bearing the same name. Kralyevo is built beside the river Ibar, 4 m. W. of its confluence with the Servian Morava; and in the midst of an upland valley, between the Kotlenik Mountains, on the north, and the Stolovi Mountains, on the south. Formerly known as Karanovats, Kralyevo received its present name, signifying "the King's Town," from King Milan (1868-1889), who also made it a bishopric, instead of Chachak, 22 m. W. by N. Kralyevo is a garrison town, with a prefecture, court of first instance, and an agricultural school. But by far its most interesting feature is the Coronation church belonging to Jicha monastery. Here six or seven kings are said to have been crowned. The church is Byzantine in style, and has been partially restored; but the main tower dates from the year 1210, when it was founded by St Sava, the patron saint of Servia. Pop. (1900), about 3600.

The famous monastery of Studenitsa, 24 m. S. by W. of Kralyevo, stands high up among the south-western mountains, overlooking the Studenitsa, a tributary of the Ibar. It consists of a group of old-fashioned timber and plaster buildings, a tall belfry, and a diminutive church of white marble, founded in 1190 by King Stephen Nemanya, who himself turned monk and was canonized as St Simeon. The carvings round the north, south and west doors have been partially defaced by the Turks. The inner walls are decorated with Byzantine frescoes, among which only a painting of the Last Supper, and the portraits of five saints, remain unrestored. The dome and narthex are modern additions. Besides the silver shrine of St Simeon, many gold and silver ornaments, church vessels and old manuscripts, there are a set of vestments and a reliquary, believed by the monks to have been the property of St Sava.

KRANTZ (or CRANTZ), ALBERT (c. 1450-1517), German historian, was a native of Hamburg. He studied law, theology and history at Rostock and Cologne, and after travelling through western and southern Europe was appointed professor, first of philosophy and subsequently of theology, in the university of Rostock, of which he was rector in 1482. In 1493 he returned to Hamburg as theological lecturer, canon and prebendary in the cathedral. By the senate of Hamburg he was employed on more than one diplomatic mission abroad, and in 1500 he was chosen by the king of Denmark and the duke of Holstein as arbiter in their dispute regarding the province of Dithmarschen. As dean of the cathedral chapter, to which office he was appointed in 1508, Krantz applied himself with zeal to the reform of ecclesiastical abuses, but, though opposed to various corruptions connected with church discipline, he had little sympathy with the drastic measures of Wycliffe or Huss. With Luther's protest against the abuse of Indulgences he was in general sympathy, but with the reformer's later attitude he could not agree. When, on his death-bed, he heard of the ninety-five theses, he is said, on good authority, to have exclaimed: "Brother, Brother, go into thy cell and say, God have mercy upon me!" Krantz died on the 7th of December 1517.