of Leicester, in the
centre of a fine wheat country; has an old church, a grammar-school
founded in 1581, and a castle mostly in ruins; manufactures of boots and
hosiery, and carries on malting.

OAKLAND (67), on the E. coast of the Bay of San Francisco, 41/2 m.
across from San Francisco city, is the capital of Alameda County,
California, a beautiful city with tree-lined streets, surrounded by
vineyards and orchards; it has a home of the adult blind of the State,
manufactures of textile and iron goods, and fruit-canning industries, and
is the terminus of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

OAKS, THE, one of the three great classic races in England, run at
Epsom; established by the 12th Earl of Derby in 1779 for fillies of 3
years old.

OAKUM, name given to fibres of old tarry ropes sundered by teasing,
and employed in caulking the seams between planks in ships; the teasing
of oakum is an occupation for prisoners in jails.

OASES, fertile spots in a desert due to the presence of springs or
water near at hand underground; met with in the deserts of North Africa,
Arabia, and Gobi.

OATES, TITUS, fabricator of a Popish plot for the overthrow of the
Protestant faith in England, the allegation of which brought to the block
several innocent men; rewarded at first with a pension and safe lodgment
in Westminster Hall, was afterwards convicted of perjury, flogged, and
imprisoned for Life, but at the revolution was set at liberty and
granted a pension of L300 (1650-1705).

OBADIAH, a Hebrew prophet who appears to have lived about 588 B.C.,
shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, at which the Edomites had
assisted, and whose prophecy was written to assure the exiles in Babylon
that the judgment of God had gone forth against Edom, and that with the
execution of it Israel would be restored.

OBAN (5), a modern town situated in the W. of Argyllshire, on a
land-locked bay opening off the Firth of Lorne, is the capital, sometimes
called the "Queen," of the Western Highlands, and a fashionable tourist
resort; it has excellent railway and steamboat communications, 30 hotels,
and has near it two ruined castles, an ancient cave dwelling, and much
beautiful scenery; Dunstaffnage Castle is 4 m. to the N. of it, where the
early Scottish kings used to be crowned.

OBEID (35), in the Eastern Soudan, 220 m. SW. of Khartoum, is the
capital of Kordofan; was the scene in November 1883 of the annihilation
by the forces of t