YRIARTE, CHARLES, French litterateur, born in Paris, of Spanish ancestry; has written works dealing with Spain, Paris, the Franco-German War, Venice, &c.; b. 1832.

YRIARTE, THOMAS DE, Spanish poet; studied at Madrid; was editor of the Madrid Mercury; his principal works “Musica,” a poem, and “Literary Fables” (1750-1790).

YSTAD, a seaport in the extreme S. of Sweden, with a commodious harbour, and a trade chiefly in corn.

YSTRADYFODWG (88), a township in Glamorgan, in a rich mining district.

YTTRIUM, a rare metal always found in combination with others, and is a blackish-gray powder; the oxide of it, yttria, is a soft whitish powder, and when ignited glows with a pure white light.

YUCATAN, a peninsula in Central America dividing the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea, and one of the few peninsulas of the world that extend northwards; is a flat expanse; has a good climate and a fertile soil, yielding maize, rice, tobacco, indigo, &c.; abounds in forests of valuable wood; forms one of the States of the Mexican Republic; it bears traces of early civilisation in the ruins of temples and other edifices.

YUGA, a name given by the Hindus to the four ages of the world, and, according to M. Barth, of the gradual triumph of evil, as well as of the successive creations and destructions of the universe, following each other in the lapse of immense periods of time.

YUKON, a great river of Alaska, rises in British territory, and after a course of 2000 m. falls, by a number of mouths forming a delta, into the Behring Sea; it is navigable nearly throughout, and its waters swarm with salmon three months in the year, some of them from 80 to 120 lbs. weight, and from 5 to 6 ft. long.

YULE, the old name for the festival of Christmas, originally a heathen one, observed at the winter solstice in joyous recognition of the return northward of the sun at that period, being a relic in the N. of the old sun worship.

YULE, SIR HENRY, Orientalist, born at Inveresk, Mid-Lothian; was an officer in Bengal Engineers, and engaged in surveys in the East; was president of the Royal Asiatic Society; wrote numerous articles for Asiatic societies; his two great works, “The Book of Marco Polo the Venetian” and the “Anglo-Indian Glossary,” known by its other title as “Hobson Jobson” (1820-1889).

YUMBOES, fairies in African mythology, represented as about two feet in height, and of a white colour.

YUNG-LING, a mountain range running N. and S., which forms the eastern buttress of the tableland of Central Asia.

YUNNAN (4,000), the extreme south-western province of the Chinese Empire; is fertile particularly in the S.; yields large quantities of maize, rice, tobacco, sugar, and especially opium, and abounds in mineral wealth, including gold, silver, mercury, as well as iron, copper, and lead; the country was long a prey to revolt against the Chinese rule, but it is now, after a war of extermination against the rebels, the Panthays, the Burmese, reduced to order.