Frankfort is the seat of government. Lexington and Louisville are the largest towns. The other most considerable towns are Maysville, Washington, Bairdstown, Paris, Danville, Russellville, Georgetown, and Newport.

There have been no less than fifty-five banks and branches of banks incorporated in this state. They are not all, however, in operation.

The principal rivers are the Ohio, which flows along the state 637 miles, following its windings; the Mississippi, Tennessee, Cumberland, Kentucky, Green, Licking, Big Sandy, Salt, and Rolling.

Cumberland mountains form the south-east boundary of this state. The eastern counties, bordering on Virginia, are mountaincus and broken. A tract from five to twenty miles wide, along the banks of the Ohio, is hilly and broken land, interspersed with many fertile valleys. Between this strip, Green River, and the eastern

counties, lies what has been called the garden of the state. This is the most populous part, and is about 150 miles long, and from fifty to 100 wide, comprising the counties of Mason, Fleming, Montgomery, Clarke, Bourbon, Fayette, Scott, Harrison, Franklin, Woodford, Mercer, Jessamine, Madison, Garrard, Logan, Casey, Lincoln, Washington, and Green. It is watered by Kentucky, Licking, Little Sandy, and Salt rivers, and their numerous branches. The soil is excellent, and the surface is agreeably diverThese sified, gently rising and descending. lands produce black walnut, black cherry, honey locust, buckeye, pawpaw, sugar-maple, mulberry, elm, ash, cotton-wood, white-thorn, with an abundance of grape vines.

There is a tract of country in the south-western part of the state, east and north of Cumberland River, and watered by Green and Barren rivers, about 100 miles in extent, called the Barrens, which a few years since was a beautiful prairie, destitute of timber. It is now covered with a young growth of various kinds of trees. These, however, do not prevent the growth of grass, and an almost endless variety of plants, which are in bloom during the whole of the spring and summer; when the whole region is a wilderness of the most beautiful flowers. The soil is of an excellent quality, being a mixture of clay, loam, and sand. Through this country there runs a chain of conical hills, called knobs. It is also distinguished for some most stupendous caves This country, sometimes called the Green River country, is now rapidly settling. The principal towns in it are Russellville, Bowling Green, and Hopkinsville.

Ancient fortifications and mounds of earth ar found in almost all parts of Kentucky. The caves in the south-western part of the state are great curiosities. One, styled Mammuth cave, 130 miles from Lexington, on the road leading to Nashville, is said to be eight or ten miles in length, with a great number of avenues and windings. Earth strongly impregnated with nitre is found in most of these caves, and there are many establishments for manufacturing it From 100 lbs. of earth 50 lbs of nitre have frequently been obtained.

A number of the rivers in this state have excavated the earth, so as to form abrupt precipices, deep glens, and frightful gulfs. The precipices formed by Kentucky River are in many places awfully sublime, presenting perpendicular banks of 300 feet of solid limestone, surmounted with a steep and difficult ascent, four times as high. The banks of Cumberland River are less precipitous, but equally depressed below the surface of the surrounding country.

Wheat, tobacco, and hemp, are the staple productions; but Indian corn is the principal grain raised for home consumption. Rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, flax, potatoes, &c., are cultivated. Apples, pears, peaches, cherries, and plums, are the most common fruits. Domestic animals are large and beautiful, and particularly the horse.

Marble of excellent quality abounds, and the whole state may be said to repose on a bed of limestone. Salt and iron are among the minerals of this state. The most extensive works for the

manufacture of salt, established west of the Alleghany Mountains, are on the waters of Kentucky. These supply not only this state, but a great part of Ohio and Tennessee.

There is a college at Lexington, and academies are established at Augusta, Cynthiana, Frankfort, Georgetown, Greensburg, Harrodsburg, Louisville, Newport, Paris, Russellsville, Versailles, Washington, &c. The legislature has made an appropriation of lands for the support of public schools, in every county, but these appropriations, in many instances, have been injudiciously managed, and have, in some cases, turned to little account. Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians, are the most numerous denominations of Christians in Kentucky.

The legislature is composed of a senate, consisting of thirty-eight members, chosen by districts, for four years; and a house of representatives, not exceeding 100, chosen annually. The governor and lieutenant-governor are chosen by the people for four years, but are not eligible for the succeeding seven years. The legislature meets on the first Monday in November.

Kentucky, from its position, has become a manufacturing state. The amount of manufactured articles, in 1814, exceeded 13,000,000 of dollars. Of this sum, the looms produced 4,657,081; salt works, 725,870; rope walks, 393,400; maple sugar, 903,932.

KENTUCKY, a river, which rises in the southeast part of the state of that name, and runs north-west into the Ohio, seventy-seven miles above the rapids at Louisville. It is navigable in the winter for small boats, about 180 miles. The current is rapid, and the banks high and rocky.

KEPLER (John), one of the greatest astronomers of his age, was born at Wiel, in the county of Wirtemberg, in 1571. His father had been an officer in the imperial service, but was so much reduced as to be obliged to keep a public house. Young Kepler, however, studied astronomy and mathematics under Mæstlinus, and made such rapid progress, that in 1593 he was appointed professor of mathematics at Gratz. In 1595 he wrote an excellent work, which was printed at Tubingen in 1596, entitled Prodromus dissertationum de proportione orbium cœlestium, deque causis cœlorum numeri, magnitudinis, motuumque periodicorum, genuinis et propriis. Tycho Brahe having settled in Bohemia, under the patronage of the emperor Rodolphus, he prevailed upon Kepler to leave the university of Gratz, and remove into Bohemia with his family and library, in 1600. Upon Brahe's death, the emperor appointed him his mathematician for life, and he daily acquired additional reputation by his works. The emperor ordered him to finish the tables of Tycho Brahe, which were called the Rodolphine Tables. He died at Ratisbon, where he was soliciting payment of the arrears of his pension, in 1630. The principal works of this great astronomer are, 1. Prodromus dissertationum, above mentioned, which he also entitled Mysterium Cosmographicum, and esteemed more than any other of his works. He sometimes said, he would not give up the honor of having written what was

contained in that book for the electorate of Saxony. 2. Harmonia mundi, with a defence of that treatise. 3. De cometis libri tres. 4.

Epitome astronomia Copernicana. 5. Astronomia nova. 6. Chilias logarithmorum, &c. 7. Nova stereometria doliorum vinariorum, &c. 8. Dioptrice. 9. De vero natali anno Christi. 10. Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, quibus Astronomiæ pars optica traditur, &c. 11. Somnium, Lunarisve Astronomia; in which he began to draw up that system of comparative astronomy which was afterwards pursued by Kircher, Huygens, and Gregory. His death happened while the work was printing; upon which James Bartschius his son-in-law undertook the care of it, but was also interrupted by death: and Lewis Kepler his son, who was then a physician at Konigsberg in Prussia, was with difficulty prevailed upon to attempt to finish it, lest it should prove fatal to him: he, however, completed the task.

KEPLER'S PROBLEM is the determining the true from the mean anomaly of a planet, or the determining its place, in its elliptic orbit, answering to any given time. The general state of the problem is this: To find the position of a right line, which, passing through one of the foci of an ellipsis, shall cut off an area which shall be in any given proportion to the area of the ellipsis; which results from this property, that such a line sweeps areas that are proportional to the times. Many solutions have been given of this problem, some direct and geometrical, others not: viz. by Kepler, who first proposed it; Bulliald, Ward, Newton, Keill, Machin, &c. See Newton's Principia, lib. 1, prop. 31; Keill's Astronomy Lect. 23; Philosophical Transactions, abr. vol. viii. p. 73, &c.

KEPPEL (Augustus), lord viscount Keppel, a celebrated British admiral, the second son of William earl of Albemarle. He accompanied Anson in his famous voyage round the world, and afterwards rose to the highest naval honors. In 1778 he commanded the channel fleet, and had Sir Hugh Palliser for his second. In the engagement between the British and French fleets, little was done, and the two admirals in consequence attacked each other. See ENGLAND. Admiral Keppel was acquitted, and in 1782 was created a peer, and was twice first lord of the Admiralty. He died in 1786.

KEPPEL BAY, a bay on the east coast of New Holland, found by captain Flinders to communicate with Port Curtis. It was discovered and named by captain Cook, in 1770. A ship going in will be deceived by the color of the water; for, the shores of the bay being soft and muddy, the water running out by the deep channels with the latter part of the ebb is thick; whilst the shallows over which the tide does not flow are covered with clear water. The deep water is therefore in the muddy channels.

KERAH, or HAWEEZA, or, as called by the Turks, Karasu, a river of Persia, formed by the junction of several streams, of the province of Ardelan, in Koordistan. It runs through the plain of Kermanshaw, where it receives the Kazawur and the Gamasu, by which, being greatly increased, it flows with a violent course