PREFACE. THE notable occurrences of the year are recorded in brief in the articles "Events of 1885" and "Disasters of 1885," where the eye can run rapidly over the list. The body of the work gives extended accounts of the most important of these, together with a great deal of information that belongs to any proper history of the year's progress, but could not be mentioned in such a table. Three of the most eminent citizens of the United States passed away in 1885, and we present extended sketches of their careers, with portraits engraved especially for this work. Ex-President Grant, the chief hero of the great civil war; General McClellan, the organizer of the Army of the Potomac, and its commander in its first two campaigns; the Most Eminent John McCloskey, the first American Cardinal-the lives of these three men involve a very large part of our recent history, military, civil, and ecclesiastical. In the article on General Grant, the military career is written by General Horace Porter, one of Grant's staff-officers during the war and his private secretary after he became President; the civil career by Hon. George S. Boutwell, who was a member of his Cabinet. The steel portrait, which forms the frontispiece of the volume, is from the photograph preferred by the General himself. The articles on General McClellan and Cardinal McCloskey are by Mr. Joseph O'Connor, one of our ablest journalists and most careful students of American history. General John Newton's description of his work in removing the obstructions at Hell-Gate, with its illustrations, will give the reader a good idea of one of the most interesting works of the kind ever undertaken; while other feats of engineering skill are recorded under the title Engineering, notably the Arlberg Tunnel and the Blaauw-Krantz Bridge. In the department of medicine, the events of the year were the treatment of the cholera epidemic in Europe and the new theory of hydrophobia. The article on Cholera is by Dr. M. S. French, of Philadelphia; and the article on Hydrophobia by Dr. F. S. Billings, of New York, in whose charge the children bitten in Newark were sent to Paris to be treated by Pasteur. In the article on the United States we present a good portrait of each member of President Cleveland's Cabinet. The President's portrait was given in last year's ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA. Several States took a special census in 1885, and the principal figures are given in the articles on those States. The Canadian articles present a full history of the Northwest Rebellion and the career of Riel, together with other matters of interest in the Dominion. In Europe the never-ending Eastern Question is still prominent, and its latest effects may be read in the history of the war between Bulgaria and Servia, of which we give a full account in the article on the latter country. The article on Egypt is contributed this year by Colonel Charles Chaillé Long, who saw hard service in that country, both as an aide to General Gordon and as acting consul in Alexandria. The rise of the Conservatives to power in Great Britain is recorded, with portraits of the principal members of the Salisbury Ministry. The reader will be better enabled to understand the land-league and crofter troubles in Ireland and Scotland, if he turns to Prof. King's carefully written article on Land Laws. The movements of European powers for the acquisition of new territory in remote quarters of the globe are related in the articles on Papua and the Caroline Islands. The articles Knights of Labor and Knights of Pythias are compiled from information obtained at headquarters. The out-door sports described in this volume are Base-Ball, La Crosse, and Yachting all treated by experts. The subject of Yachting had a special interest in 1885 from the race between the "Puritan" and the "Genesta." Our article on Patents is continued, showing what has been done during the year; and a wonderful instance of the ingenuity of modern inventors is presented in the copiously illustrated article on Automatic Musical Instruments. Rev. A. C. Kendrick, D. D., of the American committee to revise the New Testament, tells the story of the revision of our English version of the Bible, completed in 1885. Mr. John D. Champlin, Jr., one of the most successful of American cyclopædists, furnishes an article on the Fine Arts in 1884-'85, and this subject will be continued by him from year to year. Dr. Titus M. Coan, who has made a special study of mineral waters, both in the United States and in Europe, gives the latest results of his investigations. Mr. G. K. Gilbert, employed for many years on the United States Geological Survey, both in the field and in the office at Washington, presents some of the more notable results of that work, together with a colored map showing the great terminal moraine of the second glacial epoch. Among the other special articles are those on Bimetallic Currency, American Game, Terrapin-Culture, Slaughtering by Machinery, Charity Organization, and Dr. Swift's excellent article on the progress of astronomy. At the end of the book the reader will find an index covering the entire ten volumes of the series. NEW YORK, March 4, 1886. THE ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA. AFGHANISTAN, a monarchy in central Asia, occupying a mountainous country between the Oxus and Indus valleys. It is the only remaining territory separating the Russian possessions in Asia from the Indian Empire. The ruler is Abdurrahman Khan, Ameer of Afghanistan, whose residence is at Cabul. He was placed on the throne under the protection of the British Government, after the conquest of the country in the war of 1878-'79, and the abdication of his predecessor, Yakub Khan. History of the Afghan Question.-In 1836, two years after the question of the Persian royal succession had been arranged to the satisfaction of England and Russia, the Russian Minister at Teheran, Count Simonich, incited the Shah of Persia to conquer and reannex Herat A money and accompanied by Simonich, who acted as his military adviser. The defensive works constructed under the superintendence of a young English officer, Pottinger, prevented the city from falling into the hands of the Persians. The Ameer of Cabul had already, in 1836, made overtures for being taken under Russian protection. In 1837 Great Britain sent a commercial mission, headed by Capt. Alexander Burnes, to Dost Mohammed. Upon the appearance of a Cossack officer, Vickovich, at Cabul, Burnes was driven out of Afghanistan before he could obtain an audience with the Ameer. The Persian Government, while engaged in operations against Herat, entered into a treaty with the Afghan rulers of Candahar whereby that province was to become a dependency of tested that the treaty with the Candahar chiefs entered into upon Russian advice was intended to prevent the dangers of Persian annexation, and the mission of Vickovich was, like that of Capt. Burnes, for purely pacific and commercial objects. To appease England and restore the good understanding of 1834, Vickovich was recalled and the Candahar arrangement disavowed. It was not until Turkistan was annexed by Russia in 1864 that England again began to regard with suspicion and alarm the advance of the Russian power toward the Indian frontier. The Earl of Clarendon proposed in 1869 that Afghanistan should be recognized as a neutral zone between British and Russian possessions. Prince Gortchakoff approved the idea, and declared that Afghanistan was outside of the sphere of Russian influence. In 1870 the Russian Government refused to aid Abdurrahman Khan, the present Ameer, to wrest the throne of Cabul from Shere Ali. About the same time the English Cabinet was alarmed at rumors of a Russian plan to capture Khiva. Gortchakoff denied that any such intention existed, or that hostilities against the Khan were contemplated, except in case that prince should renew his intrigues among the Kirghiz. In 1871 fresh reports of an intended expedition led to additional inquiries. The Russian Government explained that a military reconnaissance had been made for the purpose of frightening the Khan, who was only required to restrain his subjects from preying on Russian commerce and imprisoning subjects of the Czar. Count Shuvaloff was sent in 1872 on a special mission to London to allay the excitement and susceptibility of the English. He said that an expedition was planned for the following spring, to consist of only four and a half battalions, with the object of punishing acts of brigandage and recovering Russian prisoners. The expedition was carried out on a larger scale than that announced, and resulted in the acknowledgment two years after of a Russian protectorate by the Khan of Khiva, and the cession to Russia of the right bank of the Oxus, with the exclusive control of that river. The English were disquieted anew by rumors of an expedition against the Merv Turkomans, and on the ground that the presence of the Russians in Merv would be likely to entail border disputes and complications with Afghanistan, which must be preserved as an independent zone, declared that the Indian Government would consider its tranquillity imperiled by a Russian advance to Merv. For ten years English dispatches repeatedly warned the Russian Government not to meddle with the Tekke Turkomans, and the Russian Cabinet constantly disclaimed the intention of going to Merv until within six months of its occupation. In 1869 Prince Gortchakoff offered no objection to English officers visiting Cabul, though he agreed with Lord Mayo that Russian agents should not. Afghanistan was again and again declared to be beyond the sphere of Russia's action. There was nevertheless some correspondence between the Ameer and the Russian authorities in Turkistan from 1870 till 1878. In the latter year, when England menaced Russia in relation to the San Stefano Treaty, the Czar's Government responded by sending Gen. Stoletoff to Cabul to negotiate an alliance against England. The result was the Afghan war of 1878-'79, in which Russia gave no aid to the Afghans, having no further quarrel with England, and the establishment in 1880 of Abdurrahman on the throne as the nominee and paid ally of the British Government. When, with the aid of British gifts of money and arms, Abdurrahman had established his authority at Candahar and Herat, and overcome his rival, Ayub Khan, the British Government agreed, in the summer of 1883, to pay him a fixed annual subsidy of twelve lacs of rupees out of the Indian revenues. Shere Ali and his predecessors had received only irregular and temporary subsidies. The English Government, furthermore, changed its traditional policy by giving a pledge to the Ameer, though still refraining from a formal treaty, promising that "if any foreign power should attempt to interfere in Afghanistan, and if such interference should lead to unprovoked aggression on the dominions of your Highness, in that event the British Government would be prepared to aid you, to such extent and in such manner as may appear to the British Government necessary, in repelling it, provided your Highness follows unreservedly the advice of the British Government in regard to your external relations." The Boundary of Afghanistan.—In the pourparlers of 1872 and 1873 the Russian Government accepted a line that would be regarded as the boundary of Afghanistan and the extreme limit of "the sphere within which Russia may be called upon to exercise her influence." Along the border of Bokhara, where Russian influence was already established, and where an advance from Tashkend in the direction of Balkh and Cabul was apprehended, a definite geographical frontier was recognized in the river Oxus, from its confluence with the Kokcha, down to Khoja Saleh, where it leaves the Afghan border and enters the steppe. This riverain boundary is not accepted by the people of the country in the upper course of the Oxus where the Galchas and Uzbecks are settled on the river-banks and the northern slopes of the Hindoo-Koosh. The large state of Karategrin lies entirely on the north side of the river, and Badakshan on the south side, but the smaller states of Wakhan, Roshan, and Shugnan, over which the Ameer of Cabul exercises a precarious and intermittent dominion, spread over both banks, as does also Darwaz, which owes fealty to the Ameer of Bokhara. All these peoples have been accustomed to appeal to the Bokharan potentate as the protector of their race against the greed and tyranny of the Afghans. Farther down the banks of the river |