0, the fifteenth letter and the fourth Europe and a great part of Asia the oak vowel in the English alphabet. In appears as a most important element in English O represents six or seven sounds religious and civil ceremonies. It was and shades of sound: (1) as in note, go, held sacred by the Greeks and Romans, etc. (2) The similar short sound as in and no less so by the ancient Gauls and tobacco. (3) The sound heard in not, Britons. The species of oak are very gone. (4) The same sound lengthened numerous, generally natives of the more as in mortal. (5) The sound in move, temperate parts of the northern hemisdo, tomb, prove. (6) The same sound phere, but found also in Java, Mexico but shorter as in wolf, woman. (7) and South America. They have alternate The sound of u in tub, as in come, done, simple leaves, which are entire in some, love. It is also a common element in but in the greater number variously lobed digraphs, as oo, oa, ou. and sinuated or cut; evergreen in some, O', in Irish proper names, a patronymic but more generally deciduous. The British prefix corresponding to the Mac of oak (Q. Robur) is found in two forms the Highlands of Scotland; thus O'Con- or varieties, by some regarded as distinct nell means the son of Connell.' species-Q. sessiliflora and Q. pedunculata; the wood of the former is heaviest ands (which see). Pop. 58,504. and toughest, that of the latter being Oahu (o-'hö), one of the Sandwich Isl or Oajaca, OAXACA (ō-à-hä'ká), a in favor with cabinet makers for orna State of Mexico, on the Pacific mental work. (See also Durmast.) For Ocean and the Gulf of Tehuantepec; more than a thousand years British ships area, 35,582 square miles. It is of uneven were mainly built of common oak (9. surface, and in many parts mountainous; Robur). The common oak attains a but is one of the most beautiful and best- height of from 50 to 100 or even 150 feet, cultivated districts in Mexico. Among with a diameter of trunk of from 4 to 8 the minerals are gold, silver, copper, quicksilver, iron, etc. Wheat, maize, indigo, cochineal, cotton, sugar, cocoa, coffee, and many fruits are produced. The only port is Huatulco. The inhabitants are chiefly Indians. Pop. 948,633.-The capital, which has the same name, stands near the river Verde, 218 miles s. s. E. of Mexico, 4800 feet above the sea. It is well built, about 2 miles in length by 14 miles in breadth, including the suburbs, which are full of gardens and plantations of cochineal. The inhabitants are industrious, manufacturing silk, cotton, sugar and chocolate. Pop. (1910) 38,011. Oak (ok), the general name of the trees feet. Noble specimens of oak trees, and some of them historically celebrated, exist in almost all parts of Britain. On the settlement of the United States oaks were found to be still more numerous there in species than in Europe, most of them yielding valuable timber. The white oak (Q. alba), extending from the Gulf States to Canada, is inferior in quality only to the British oak, and other species of value are the over-cup oak of the Southern States (Q. lyrata); the live-oak (Q. virens), also southern; the red-oak (Q. rubra), widely dis tributed, the black oak (Q. nigra); and others of less value. The dwarf chestnut and shrubs belonging to the genus oak (Q. primoides) and several others Quercus, nat. order Cupuliferæ, having produce edible acorns. The oak subserves monoecious flowers, those of the males a great number of useful purposes, the forming pendulous catkins, those of the wood being hard, tough, tolerably flexible, females solitary or in clusters, and hav- strong without being too heavy, not ing an involucre which forms the well- readily penetrated by water. Among the known cup' of the fruit-the acorn. The other chief species are the dyer's oak (Q. oak from the remotest antiquity has ob- tinctoria), the bark of which is used for tained a preeminence among trees, and tanning and dyeing leather; the cork has not unjustly been styled the monarch oak (Q. Suber), live oak (Q. virens), of the woods.' In the traditions of the Turkey oak (Q. Cerris) furnishing Oak-beauty Oasis valuable timber; the valonia oak (Q. no industries; essentially a residence place. ægilops) whose acorn-cups are largely Pop. (1910) 19,444; (1920) 39,830. used in tanning; the kermes oak (Q. coc- Oakum (o'kum), the substance of old cifera), the edible oak (Q. æsculus), tarred or untarred ropes unyielding edible acorns; evergreen oak (Q. twisted and pulled into loose fibers; used lex). The bark of the common oak tree for caulking the seams of ships, stopping and of several others is preferred to all leaks, etc. That formed from untarred other substances for the purpose of tan- ropes is called white oakum. ning, on account of the amount of tannic Oamaru (ö-ä'ma-rö), a seaport of New and gallic acid it contains. Oak galls, Zealand, on the east coast of morbid growths caused by insects (see Otago, the second town of the provincial Galls), are also much used in tanning, district next to Dunedin, with which it especially those of Q. infectoria. Oak is connected by railway. It is a handbark is also used medicinally as an as- some town built of pure white limestone, tringent. The name oak is sometimes has a safe and commodious harbor, and popularly applied to timber of very dif- exports large quantities of cereals and ferent genera of trees; thus African teak other agricultural produce. It has grainis often called African oak; while in Aus- mills, a woolen factory, etc. Pop. 5071. tralia the term oak is applied to some Oannes (o-an'nes), the Babylonian seaspecies of Casuarina. What is known god. He is described as having as green oak is a condition of oak-wood the head and body of a fish, to which caused by its being colored with the were added a human head and feet. In spawn of Peziza æruginosa, a species of the daytime he lived with men to infungus. struct them in the arts and sciences, but the popular name of a at night retired to the ocean. Oak-beauty, British moth (Biston Oar (or), a long piece of timber flat at prodromaria), whose caterpillar feeds on Oakham (o'kam), or OKEHAM, the one end and round at the other, used to propel a boat, barge, or galley through the water. The flat part, which is dipped into the water, is called the blade; the other end is the handle; and the part between the two is called the loom. Oars are frequently used for steering, as in whale-boats. Sweeps are large oars used in small vessels sometimes to the motion of the ship in a calm. assist the rudder, but usually to assist scull is a short oar of a length such that one man can manage two, there being one on each side, or a single oar used in propelling a boat, it being placed over the stern. A ways. Besides being a beautiful residen- Oar-fish (Regalecus Banksii), one of the ribbon-fishes, a peculiar tial city, it has shipbuilding yards, smelt- deep sea fish. 12 to 20 feet or more in ing and metallurgical works, flour and length, but having a narrow and explaning mills, canneries, etc. Pop. (1910) tremely compressed body. It is of a 150,174; (1920) 216,261. silvery color, and is only rarely met with, Oak-leaf Roller (Tortrix viridana), usually in a dying condition. a small moth which Oasis (o-a'sis), originally the name of is very destructive to trees and takes the fertile spots in the Libyan its name from the fact that the larvæ roll Desert where there is a spring or well themselves up in the oak leaves, which and more or less vegetation, but now give them both food and shelter. The applied to any fertile tract in the midst front wings are green, but the chief color of a waste, and often used figuratively. The oases of Northern Africa are genOak-leather, and in old oaks run- are for the most part underground, or a kind of fungous spawn erally river valleys, the waters of which ning down the fissures, and when re- depressions surrounded by short ranges moved not unlike white kid leather. It of hills, from which small brooks descend, is very common in America, where it is sometimes forming a lake in the center. sometimes used for spreading plasters In recent times oases have been formed in the Northern Sahara by sinking ar is brown. on. Oak Park, s, 81⁄2 miles W. of oases in the Western Sahara, in the a village of Cook County, tesian wells. There are many important Chicago, of which it is a suburb. It has Libyan Desert in Arabia, Persia, and Oat Oban in the Desert of Gobi in Central Asia. liberated, and lived to a good old age, In ancient times the most celebrated oasis enjoying an ill-deserved pension of £300 was that to the west of Egypt, contain- a year. ing the temple of Jupiter Ammon, now Oath (oth), a solemn assertion or promcalled the Oasis of Siwah. See Egypt, ise, with the invocation of God to Sahara. be a witness of the truth of what we Oat (ot), or OATS (Avēna), a genus of say. Various forms have been associated edible grasses cultivated extensively with oath-taking. Thus, men have proin all temperate climates, and though claimed and symbolized their promise by principally grown as food for horses chopping a fowl in two, by standing largely used when ground into meal as within a circle of rope, by placing the human food. There are about sixty spe- hand under another's thigh, by dipping cies, the principal of which are A. sativa weapons into or drinking blood, or by (the common oat), A. nuda (naked oat, stretching the hands upwards towards the pilcorn, or peelcorn), A. orientalis (Tar- sky, and this latter gesture has estabtarian or Hungarian oat), A. brevis lished itself throughout Europe. Among (short oat), A. strigōsa (bristle-pointed the early Christians the question of oathoat), A. chinensis (Chinese oat), etc. taking was a matter of much controversy, The cultivated species of oats are sub- objection to it being founded upon divided into a large number of varieties, Christ's command of Swear not at all' which are distinguished from each other (Matt. v, 34); but this injunction was by color, size, form of seeds, quality of held by Athanasius and others only to straw, period of ripening, adaptation to prohibit colloquial as distinct from juparticular soils and climates, and other dicial swearing. This objection is still characteristics. The yield of oats varies maintained, however, by Mennonites, from 20 bushels to 80 bushels per acre Quakers, Anabaptists; and the Secular according to soil, etc. The weight per ists in England, upon other grounds, rebushel varies from 35 to 45 lbs., and the fuse the judicial oaths. Oaths to permeal product is about half the weight form illegal acts do not bind, nor do they of the oats. Oatmeal is a cheap and excuse the performance of the act. In valuable article of food, and its value civil law, oaths are chiefly divided into seems to be becoming more appreciated two, classes-assertory or affirmative among the wealthier classes as it is being oaths (juramenta assertoria), establishneglected by the poorer. The wild oat ing the certainty of a present or past (A. fatua) is supposed to be the original event, and promissory oaths (juramenta of all the species, but its native country promissoria), which refer to a future is unknown. event, a promise to execute some conOates (ots), TITUS, son of a ribbon tract or undertaking. The laws of all weaver, born in London about civilized countries require the security of 1620; died in 1705. He took orders in an oath for evidence given in a court of the Church of England, and held benefices justice, and on other occasions of high in Kent and Sussex; became afterwards importance. Any person called as a witchaplain in the navy and was discharged ness, or required or desiring to make an for misconduct; turned Roman Catholic, affidavit or deposition, who shall, from and resided for some time at the Jesuit conscientious motives, refuse to be sworn, College of Valladolid and St. Omar, but may obtain from the court, on its being was finally, in 1678, dismissed for re- satisfied of the sincerity of the objection, peated misdemeanors. Flung into the permission to make a solemn affirmation world as a mere adventurer, he returned or declaration instead. See Affirmation, to England and concocted the story of Perjury. the famous Popish Plot' (which see). Oaxaca. See Oajaca. Various events gave color to the accusa minor prophets, who foretells tion, and in the public excitement created Ob. See Obe. by the story several eminent Catholics were executed, while Titus Oates was Obadiah (ob-a-di'a), one of the twelve lodged handsomely in Whitehall, and received a pension of £900 from parliament. the speedy ruin of the Edomites. The The effects of this perjury continued for prophecy was probably uttered during the two years until, after the execution of period which elapsed between the fall of Strafford, there was a revulsion of public Jerusalem (586 B.C.) and the conquest opinion. He was afterwards convicted of Edom by Nebuchadnezzar (583 B.C.). of perjury, sentenced to be pilloried five Oban (o'ban), a seaport of Scotland, times a year, whipped from Aldgate to county of Argyle, situated on a Newgate, and imprisoned for life. On the large protected bay 92 miles from Glasaccession of William and Mary he was gow and 493 miles from London. by rail |