lower part of the country. Severe frosts occasionally occur on the table land, but very little snow falls, and cattle are consequently enabled to find subsistence at all seasons. A great deal of the land is rich and fertile, but agriculture is much neglected. Wheat, maize, barley, rice, peas, beans, flax, hemp, and cotton are all raised; and the vine, peach, sugar cane, and numerous kinds of fruit trees thrive remarkably well. Timber is only found on the banks of the principal rivers. The pastures are excellent, and the wealth of the inhabitants consists in their flocks and herds. Great numbers of horses and horned cattle run wild on the plains, and large flocks of sheep are kept, the wool of which is of superior quality. Among the wild animals are included the tapir, deer, ounce, monkey, paca, rabbit, and fox; and large packs of wild dogs frequent the plains. There are many kinds of birds, and water fowl frequent the lakes. The manufactures are of little importance, being confined to a few coarse articles for domestic use. The commerce of the country is also comparatively insignificant, few of the natural products finding their way abroad. The exports consist of jerked and salted beef, tallow, hides, horns, and hair; and the imports of manufactured articles, lumber, flour, sugar, cordage, and agricultural implements from the United States. During the year 1858, 936 vessels of an aggregate of 186,699 tons entered, and 922 vessels of an aggregate of 183,230 tons cleared from the ports of the republic. In the same year the value of the exports to the principal countries with which trade is carried on was as follows: Great Britain and her colonies, $1,176,375; France, $1,018,340; Brazil, $981,330; Sardinia, $714,425; United States, $650,115; Spain, $501,700; and Buenos Ayres, $272,340.-In theory the government of Uruguay resembles that of the United States, but in practice it has degenerated into a mere military despotism, and the president, who is usually some successful general, in reality possesses absolute power. According to the budget for 1860, the revenues and expenditures for 18 months were each estimated at $3,579,802. The total public debt in the same year amounted to about $25,000,000.-The territory included in the republic of Uruguay was originally settled by a Spanish colony from Buenos Ayres, but the possession of it afterward caused a war between Spain and Portugal, during which it was in turn several times occupied by both. The contest was finally decided in favor of Spain, and the country attached to the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, and known as the district of Banda Oriental. When the war of independence began, Banda Oriental took the side of Buenos Ayres, but shortly afterward separated from that republic. The Brazilians, seeing the country in an unsettled state, and fearing lest its revolutionary doctrines should spread into their territory, took possession of it in 1821. Buenos Ayres protested against this proceeding, but war did not actually break out with Brazil till 1826. A treaty of peace was concluded in 1828, through the intervention of Great Britain, by which the N. part of the country, known as the Seven Missions, was ceded to Brazil, and the S. portion was declared an independent state, under the title of Republica del Uruguay Oriental. Internal dissensions soon broke out, and Rosas, the president of Buenos Ayres, was asked for assistance by Oribe, one of the unsuccessful candidates for the presidency of Uruguay. Some troops were sent, and the war continued for a long time with very little advantage on either side. Brazil, being at last induced to interfere, sent to the governments of England and France to request their help in compelling the combatants to lay down their arms. Both these powers sent some ships of war to the Rio de la Plata in 1845, and blockaded Montevideo, the former till 1848 and the latter till 1849, when they made treaties with the ruler of Buenos Ayres. The Argentine provinces of Corrientes and Entre Rios joined Rosas, and the war continued till 1851, when Oribe was defeated and his patron shortly afterward deposed. Peace was now secured, and treaties were entered into with foreign states, one concluded in Jan. 1859 with Brazil and the Argentine Confederation securing the independence and neutrality of the state; but internal discord still prevailed, and has kept the affairs of the country in a most disorganized condition down to the present time. Bernardo Prudencio Berro is now president, having been elected for 4 years in March, 1860. URÚGUAY, a river of South America, which rises on the W. slope of a range of hills in the N. part of the province of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, about lat. 28° S., long. 50° W. After flowing N. W. for about 100 m., it is joined on the right by the Pelotas, by which name it is sometimes known in this part of its course, and then assumes a W. direction until it is joined from the N. by the Repiri, which separates Brazil from the state of Corrientes in the Argentine Confederation. Its course is now S. S. W. for perhaps 250 m., during which it receives the Ibicui, Arapey, and other important affluents, and separates Brazil and Uruguay on the left from the Argentine Confederation on the right. From the town of Belen in Uruguay, at the mouth of the Arroyo-Arapey, its direction is almost due S. for 400 m., when it unites with the Parana to form the Rio de la Plata, in lat. 34° S., long. 61° 40′ W. The most considerable of all its tributaries is the Rio Negro, which joins it from Uruguay, 50 m. above its mouth. Its whole length is 800 m. It is navigable by sailing barks to a point 40 m. below the Ibicui, the N. boundary of the republic of Uruguay. There is here a cataract, above which the river is navigable by large canoes to the mouth of the Pelotas. Its banks are extremely fertile, and produce cotton and maté or Paraguay tea, but they are little cultivated. USBECKS. See TURKS. USES. The word usus was employed in the Roman civil law, and there meant a right to take so much of the fruit or profit of a thing as was needed for sustenance; while usufructus had a larger meaning, including a qualified right of possession. In the law of England and the United States, the word use has a precise meaning, which is similar to that of the fidei commissum of the Roman law. It means a confidence reposed in one who has the property (or to whom it is given) in possession, that he will hold it for the use or benefit of another, who is called in Norman French the cestuy que use. A Roman magistrate (a prætor) was charged with the enforcement of these fidei commissa, and was called commissarius. When uses became common in England, the chancellor, under whose jurisdiction they passed, had much the same duty to perform as the Roman commissarius; and indeed Lord Bacon calls this magistrate a Roman chancellor.-Uses were invented in England to avoid and defeat the statutes of mortmain (see TRUST); and to protect those statutes against uses, the statute of 27 Henry VIII., commonly called the statute of uses, was enacted. This statute provided that any person or corporation entitled to a use in fee simple, fee tail, or otherwise, should stand seized and possessed of the land itself, in the like estate which they had in the use; the intention being to subject a conveyance to the use of any one, and the property and the cestuy que use, to the same legal restraints and liabilities as if the conveyance had been made directly to the cestuy que use. This statute was said, in legal phraseology, "to execute the use." It was intended to prevent conveyances to use, by making them of no effect where they violated the statutes of mortmain, and of no more effect than a direct conveyance where they did not. Still such uses as the law permitted, or as courts of equity could protect, were found to be exceedingly convenient, and became common; and courts of equity retained their hold upon them, the person to whom the conveyance was made being considered as having the legal estate, subject to the rules of law and the jurisdiction of courts of law, while the cestuy que use has an equitable estate subject to the rules and the courts of equity. This is now the prevailing condition of the law of uses in England and in the United States. But the whole system of law and of equity in regard to uses has become as intricate and extensive as it is important. Here we can do no more than indicate the principal rules of this system.There can be no use, unless: 1, there is a person capable in law of taking it; 2, a person capable in law of being seized of the property to the use of the other; 3, an express declaration of use, or a consideration and a transfer or contract from which the court will imply a use; and 4, sufficient estate or property or interest to sustain a use. Then, if a use exists which the courts can recognize, it is descendible, or heritable, or devisable, or transferable accord ing to the rules of law or equity, in conformity with the provisions in the instrument creating the use. If the cestuy que use of land be married, his widow has no dower, nor the husband of a cestuy que use a tenancy by courtesy, because the cestuy que use has no seisin, nor can he bring an action at law respecting it. The seisin is in the feoffee-to-use, and while his legal estate is subject to all legal incidents at law, equity will subject all these legal incidents to the equitable requirements of the use.-Trusts and uses are often spoken of together, and from the article on TRUSTS their similarity, or analogy, will be seen. They are however different in important particulars; but the rules of law which define this difference are so nice and technical, and still open to so much question, that our space does not permit us to present them with sufficient fulness to be useful. USHANT (Fr. Ouessant), the chief island of a cluster of 7, known collectively as îles d'Ouessant, situated about 15 m. from the coast of France, off the W. coast of the department of Finistère, of which they form a canton, and 28 m. W. N. W. from Brest; extreme length 5 m., breadth 3 m.; pop. 2,271. The shores of Ushant are boid and rocky, and landing is only practicable in a few places. The formation is almost entirely granitic, and the soil is fertile, the surface being covered with excellent meadows and pasture lands, upon which horses and sheep are reared. The inhabitants are principally occupied in fishing, and paganism was said to linger among them till the 17th century. The lighthouse on Ushant is situated in lat. 48° 28' N., long. 5° 3′ W. Off Ushant the British fleet under Sir Edward Hawkes gained a complete victory over the French under Admiral Conflans in 1759; and an indecisive action took place between the English under Admiral Keppel and the French under Count d'Orvilliers in 1778. USHER (Fr. huissier), a public officer having charge of the door of a court or hall, and hence one whose business it is to introduce strangers and perform other similar duties. There are various officers of this kind attached to the royal household in England, including the gentleman usher of the black rod, who attends in the house of peers during the sessions of parliament, and 12 or more gentleman ushers. There is also an usher of the exchequer, who attends the barons and other officers of that court. The term is also applied to an under or assistant master in a school. USHER, JAMES, an Irish prelate, born in Dublin, Jan. 4, 1580, died in Reigate, Surrey, March 21, 1656. He was educated at Trinity college, Dublin, being one of the first 3 students admitted. He began the study of theology in 1598, took the degree of M.A, in 1600, was ordained priest in 1601, and soon after received the appointment of "Sunday afternoon preacher before the state" in Christ church, Dublin. He was chosen professor of divinity in his college in 1607, and in the same year was made chancellor of the cathedral of St. Patrick. In 1620 King James nominated him to the see of Meath; in 1623 he was made a member of the Irish privy council; and in Jan. 1624, he was raised to the archbishopric of Armagh and the primacy of the Irish church. In 1640 he visited England, and during his absence his house at Armagh was destroyed by the rebels (1641), and with it he lost nearly every thing he possessed. In the state of the country it was thought needless to return to his archbishopric, and Charles I. conferred upon him the bishopric of Carlisle, to be held in commendam. In 1647 he was chosen preacher to the society of Lincoln's Inn, and preached regularly in the chapel during term time for nearly 8 years. He was buried in Westminster abbey by order of Cromwell. His principal works are: De Ecclesiarum Christianarum Successione et Statu (London, 1613); "Emanuel, or a Treatise on the Incarnation of the Son of God" (Dublin, 1638); Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates (Dublin, 1639); De Romanæ Ecclesiæ Symbolo (London, 1647); Dissertatio de Macedonum et Asianorum Anno Solari (1648); Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti (2 vols. fol., 1650-'54); Epistola ad Ludovicum Capellum de Variantibus Textus Hebraici Lectionibus (1652); "The Reduction of Episcopacy to the Form of the Synodical Government in the Ancient Church" (1658); and Chronologia Sacra (1660). A complete edition of his works has been published by the Dublin university in 17 vols. USQUEBAUGH (Irish, uisge, water, and bagh, life), the Irish name for distilled spirit, whence the modern word whiskey. It is now applied to a liquor compounded of brandy, raisins, cinnamon, and other spices. USUMASINTA RIVER. See GUATEMALA. USURY. Originally this word meant any taking of money for the use of money; and he was therefore a usurer who, lending money, required in repayment any thing more than the amount which he lent. This was once considered a great moral wrong, and the greater the more was taken. For many ages, however, this opinion, if it has not ceased to exist, has lost much of its practical or legal force. It is no longer deemed more wrong to take pay for the use of money than for the use of a house, or a horse, or any other property. But the lingering influence of the former opinion, together with the fact that the nature of money makes it easier for the lender to oppress the borrower, has caused nearly all Christian nations to fix by law the rate of compensation for the use of money. If compensation be taken within this limitation of law, it is called interest; but if more be taken than the law allows, this is, in the present meaning of the word, usury. (See INTEREST.) The opinion that money should be borrowed and repaid, or bought and sold, upon whatever terms the parties should agree to, like any other property, has of late years gained ground almost everywhere; and where usury laws are in force, this opinion has perhaps exerted some influence upon adjudication. In in England, in the reign of Henry VIII., interest at 10 per cent. was made lawful; in the time of James I. it was reduced to 8 per cent.; during the commonwealth it was 6 per cent., and this was again enacted by 12 Charles II.; the statute of 12 Anne reduced it to 5 per cent. The act 3 and 4 William IV. exempted from the operation of the usury laws bills having more than 3 months to run. After several modifications in the reign of Victoria, the act 17 and 18 Victoria, ch. 90, repealed all laws then in force relating to usury; providing only that the rights and remedies of persons in respect to acts previously done, should not be affected by the statute.-In the United States, the usury laws differ in different states, and are not perhaps precisely the same in any two. In Louisiana 5 per cent. is the legal rate; in New York, South Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, it is 7 per cent.; in Alabama, Florida, and Texas, 8 per cent.; in California, Kansas, and Oregon, 10 per cent. ; in all the other states it is 6 per cent. But the statutes vary exceedingly as to the legal effects of usury. In some, the parties may agree on what rate they will, and the legal rate takes effect only in the absence of agreement; others, the whole contract is avoided by a reservation or agreement for more than the legal rate. Regarding these as extremes, in much the greater number the penalty for usury lies between them. In some states the legal rate takes effect when there is no agreement, but the parties may agree for more up to a certain definite limit.-There are many ways in which the usury laws may be evaded, and courts watch contracts liable to this abuse with great strictness. Some principles may be gathered from the adjudications, which may be regarded as prevalent, if not universal. Thus, to constitute usury, there must be substantially a loan, and a usurious intent in both parties, in one to give and in the other to take usurious interest. But the contract need not be, in form, a loan; and whether it is so in fact, is a question for a jury. Property may be sold for whatever price the parties agree upon; but if the sale be in fact a mere cover for the usury, it does not protect it. Negotiable paper may be sold like other paper. The cases on this subject are numerous, nice, and perhaps conflicting; but it may be stated as a general rule, that if it is in fact the promissor who sells, and the buyer buys even through an agent, but with knowledge that he buys of the promissor, it is in fact and in law a loan from the buyer, and may therefore be usurious. Even if a statute declares a usurious contract "void," in the most emphatic language, the law looks upon it rather as "voidable;" and therefore no one can make the objection of usury but the borrower and the parties in privity of interest and contract with him. So, if one borrows stock, agreeing to replace it with the dividends received in the mean time, or if he agrees to replace it, or the money it sells for, with interest on its value, the contract is not usurious; but if the lender retains an option to take either the dividends or interest, it is usurious. If a note be given usuriously in payment of or as security for a preexisting debt, and the note is void by the usury laws, the original debt remains unaffected. As there must be usurious intent, if illegal interest is taken by a miscalculation or other mistake in fact, it is not usury; but it is usury if the mistake be one of law, because every person is held to know the law. If the lender takes upon himself an extra risk (apart from that of the borrower's insolvency), he may charge extra interest. Bottomry and respondentia contracts are founded on this principle, because if the ship or goods are lost, the debt is not demandable. The same principle is applied to the purchase of an annuity, and even to the bargain of the borrower that if he does not repay the principal when due with legal interest, he will pay a certain penalty, because he has the power of avoiding this penalty by payment of interest. If a borrower on repaying the money make the lender a gift, it is usurious if the gift be in performance of a previous promise, but not otherwise. Discount of interest, whereby the lender gets interest on his interest, or interest on money which he never lends, and calculations of interest by Rowlett's tables, which consider the year as consisting of only 360 days (but qualify the error by casting the fractions on the right side), are now established usages, and would not make the contract usurious, especially if the contract were of a kind usually subjected to this usage, as are bank discounts. Compound interest is said, in a recent case (23 Pick. 167), to “savor of usury;" but it may be regarded not so much usury as an agreement to pay a penalty for not paying interest. In the present state of the authorities, it may be said that wherever usury is forbidden, a bargain for compound interest would not be enforced. But it is common for courts to order a settlement of accounts with annual rests, which is equivalent to compound interest. This is especially done where trustees have used the money of their cestuy que trust. The prevailing rule for the settlement of accounts on which payments have been made (originating in a decision in Massachusetts) is this: compute the interest on the principal to the first time a payment was made, which payment exceeds, alone or with previous payments, the interest then due; add that interest to the principal; from the sum subtract the payment and preceding payments; the remainder forms a new principal, upon which proceed as before, up to the time of settlement or the rendering of judgment. UTAH (from the Indian tribe of the same name, commonly spelled Yuta, which signifies "those who dwell in mountains"), a territory of the United States of America, bounded N. by Washington territory, N. E. by Nebraska, E. by Colorado, S. by Arizona (New Mexico), and W. by Nevada, and lying between lat. 37° and 42° N., and long. 109° and 116° W; area, 131,320 sq. m., or 84,044,880 acres. It was divided in 1860, according to Capt. R. F. Burton ("City of the Saints," 1862), into 19 counties, viz.: Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, Weber, Iron, Tooele, San Pete Valley, Juab, Box Elder,* Washington, Millard, Green River, Cedar,* Malad,* Cache,* Beaver,* Shambip,* Salt Lake Islands,* and St. Mary's.* The largest town is Salt Lake City, Fillmore, the capital, being only a hamlet; and the other county towns are Provo, Farmington, Ogden, Parovan, Tooele, San Pete, Salt Creek, Box Elder, Fort Harmony, Fort Supply, Cedar City, Fort Malad, Cache Valley, Beaver Creek, and Deep Creek. The population of the territory by the U. S. census of 1850 was ascertained to be 11,380, of whom 26 were slaves. In 1856 a census taken by the Mormon authorities returned 37,277 males and 39,058 females, a total of 76,335. The non-Mormon inhabitants, however, maintained that these numbers were purposely exaggerated, and the U. S. commissioners in the following year reported that the population did not exceed 50,000. The U. S. census of 1860 returned 40,295, of whom 29 were slaves. A majority of the people are foreigners, chiefly from Great Britain. The surface of Utah is an immense basin elevated 4,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea, surrounded on all sides by mountains 8,000 to 10,000 feet high, and subdivided by transverse ridges. The rim of the basin is formed on the N. by the mountains of Oregon, on the E. and S. by sub-ranges of the Rocky mountains, and on the W. by the Sierra Nevada. At some remote period this great basin was evidently an inland sea. The bench formation, a system of water marks, is found in every valley, while detached and parallel blocks of mountain, trending almost invariably N. and S., were in geological ages rock islands rising above the water. Between these primitive and metamorphic ridges lie the secondary basins, whose average width may be 15 or 20 miles. They open into one another by cañons and passes, and are often separated longitudinally by smaller divisions running E. and W., thus converting one extended strip of secondary into a system of tertiary valleys. Two great mountain chains run transversely across the basin from S. E. to S. W. The northernmost is the Humboldt river range, 6,600 feet high; the southern is the prolongation of the Wahsatch range, which has an elevation of nearly 12,000 feet. The watershed of the basin is toward the N., S., E., and W., chiefly through the affluents of the Columbia and the Colorado. Lakes are numerous, two nearly parallel chains of them extending across the country from N. to S. The eastern chain begins at the north with the Great Salt lake (see GREAT SALT LAKE), the small lakes of the Wahsatch, the Utah, the *These counties are not contained in the U. S. census re turns for 1860; while three returned by the census, Carson, Deseret, and Summit, are not named by Burton. Nicollet, and the Little Salt lake. All these are fed by the streams that flow from the western counterslope of the Wahsatch mountains. The other chain consists of Mud, Pyramid (so called from a pyramidal rock rising from its waters), Carson, Mono, and Walker's lakes, which receive the waters flowing from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. There are many thermal springs in the territory, some of which discharge strong brine, some are sulphurous, and others chalybeate.-The rocks of Utah are mostly primitive-granite, jasper, syenite, hornblende, and porphyry, with various quartzes. Volcanic action is indicated by the presence of obsidian, scoriæ, and lava. Many of the ridges are of carboniferous limestone mingled with calcareous spar, and resting upon or alternating with hard and compact grits and sandstone, and in many places rich with encrinites and fossil corallines. In the cañons near Salt Lake City are found bowlders of serpentine; fine gray granite; coarse red, ochrish, poikilitic, crystalline white, and metamorphic sandstones; a variety of conglomerates, especially granitic, with tufa in large masses; talcose and striated slates, gypsum, pebbles of alabaster, and various kinds of limestone. Marble of every hue and texture is found in large masses. Iron of excellent quality is abundant, and gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc have been found. Bituminous coal exists in inexhaustible quantities, as also sulphur and saleratus; and alum, borax, and petroleum have been discovered. Among the precious stones that have been found are rubies, emeralds, chalcedony, sardonyx, carnelian, and agates.-Among the native animals are the antelope, deer, elk, bighorn or Rocky mountain sheep, the cougar, the catamount, the large and small wolf, the red, great-tailed, and silver fox, minks, ermines, skunks, badgers, wolverenes, beavers, hares, the jackass rabbit, porcupines, gophers, woodchucks, squirrels, and the hyrax, or as the Mormons call it the cony. The principal birds of prey are the red-tailed hawk, the sharp-shinned hawk, the sparrow hawk, and the vulturine turkey buzzard. There are several varieties of quail and grouse; and among the water fowl are swans, wild geese, the white pelican, the cormorant, the mallard or green-head, the red-breasted and greenwinged teal, the brant, the plover and curlew, the gull, a blue heron, and a brown crane. There are also the blue bird, the humming bird, finches, woodpeckers, the swamp blackbird, the snow bird, and a species of lark which is considered a delicacy for the table. Among the reptiles are a gray and green lizard and the phrynosoma or horned frog, of which there are many species. The serpents are chiefly rattlesnakes, swamp adders, and water snakes. The fishes are perch, pike, bass, chub, trout, and salmon trout, the last of which sometimes reaches the weight of 30 lbs.-The vegetation of Utah is not luxuriant. Timber is scarce except on the mountains, where there are extensive forests of pine and fir. The lower cañons and river bottoms produce willows, scrub maple, box elder, aspen, birch, cottonwood, and in the southern part of the territory spruce and dwarf ash. There is an inconvenient deficiency of hard wood and of wood fit for building, though extensive plantations have been made which promise a sufficient supply in the future. Among the peculiar natural products is a fine bunch grass, which lives and grows through the winter and furnishes food for cattle at all seasons. The wild fruits are the service berry, chokeberry, buffalo berry, gooseberry, strawberry, and black, white, red, and yellow mountain currant.-The great elevation of Utah above the sea and the immense masses of snowcovered mountains that surround it exercise a material effect upon the climate. The air is highly rarified, so that new comers suffer from difficulty of breathing, and after violent exercise experience nausea and fainting. The weather is changeable, and during much of the year is very bleak. In 1860 the highest range of the thermometer was 96° in July, and the lowest 22° below zero in December. Spring opens in the valleys with great suddenness, and the summer is hot, though the mornings and evenings are usually cooled by breezes from the mountains. Thunder storms and dust storms are frequent and violent. The winter is severe, with high winds and deep snows, which lie in the cañons throughout the year.-The Indians of Utah are chiefly of the Shoshonee or Snake nation, and of the Yuta or Ute race, as they are commonly called by the whites. The Shoshonees comprise 14 tribes, averaging nearly 1,000 souls each. The Yuta are divided into 27 bands, and are estimated to number 15,000 souls. Many of their bands however roam beyond the bounds of Utah, and the whole nation is thought to be diminishing. Of late years they have been hostile to the whites, and have lost many of their fighting men in encounters with the emigrants crossing the plains to California, and with the U. S. regular forces. Of the white inhabitants of Utah, nearly all are Mormons or "Latter Day Saints," the majority of whom are of European birth, chiefly English. The character of these people, among whom polygamy is extensively practised, has been very differently represented by different observers. By most of the travellers who have written concerning them they have been described as intolerant, ignorant, immoral, and coarse, with little regard for the rights of the "Gentile" or non-Mormon part of their neighbors. On the other hand, Capt. Burton, the English traveller, who spent 24 days among them in 1860, and is an apologist for polygamy, says that "in point of mere morality the Mormon community is perhaps purer than any other of equal numbers," and ascribes to them tolerance, kindness, sobriety, industry, and many other good qualities. The influence of the priesthood is very strongly felt in all civil and social matters among the Mormons, and is exercised through a complicated and imposing or |