JARROW (34), in Durham, on the Tyne, 7 m. below Newcastle; is a coal-shipping port, and has extensive shipbuilding and iron manufactures; in ancient times its monastery was made famous by the Venerable Bede.

JARVIE, BAILIE NICOL, a Glasgow magistrate; an original character in Scott’s “Rob Roy.”

JASHER, BOOK OF, a Hebrew book twice quoted in the Old Testament, no longer extant; believed to have been a collection of national ballads.

JASMIN, JACQUES, a Gascon barber and poet, who by his romances, burlesques, and odes, published between 1835 and 1849, raised the patois of the S. of France to the status of a literary language, and created a wholesome influence on French life and letters (1778-1864).

JASON, a mythological Greek hero, son of AEson, king of Iolcos; brought up by the centaur Chiron, was supplanted on the throne by his half-brother Pelias; undertook the leadership of the Argonautic expedition, assisted by Medea in this enterprise; he took her to wife, but cast her off for Creusa, whom Medea to avenge herself killed, with her father and her two sons by Jason, she herself escaping to Athens in a chariot drawn by winged dragons; Jason took refuge from her fury in the sanctuary of Poseidon near Corinth, where the timber of the ship Argo deposited there breaking up fell upon him and crushed him to death.

JASPER, an opaque quartz found in all colours, and spotted, striped, and clouded; is valued in ornamental lapidary work because of the polish it takes.

JASSY (90), ancient capital of Moldavia, situated 89 m.  NE. of Bucharest; is the seat of an archbishop and a university, and has a large community of Jews; trades largely with Russia in corn, spirits, and wine.

JATAKA, a Pali collection of stories recounting 550 previous “births” of the Buddha, the earliest collection of popular tales, and the ultimate source of many of AEsop’s fables and Western folk-lore legends.

JATS, are the principal race in the Punjab, where they number 41/2 millions, and are engaged in agriculture.  There is much debate as to their origin and their racial relationship.

JAVA (23,868), the finest island of the Indian Archipelago, lying between Sumatra and Bali, with the Indian Ocean on the S. and the Java Sea separating it from Borneo on the N., lies E. and W., traversed by a mountain chain with a rich alluvial plain on the N.; there are many volcanoes; the climate is hot, and on the coast unhealthy; the mountains are densely wooded, and the teak forests are valuable; the plain is fertile; coffee, tea, sugar, indigo, and tobacco are grown and exported; all kinds of manufactured goods, wine, spirits, and provisions are imported; the natives are Malays, more civilised than on neighbouring islands; there are 240,000 Chinese, many Europeans and Arabs; the island is nearly as large as England, and belongs to Holland; the chief towns are Batavia (105) and Samarang (70), both on the N.