New volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica > Volume 30, K-MOR

KEHL — KELLER
26
in Keewatin are Norway House, near the outlet of
Lake Winnipeg; Oxford House, on the lake of the same
name; York Factory, at the mouth of Hayes river ; and
Forts Severn and Churchill, at the mouths of the
Severn and Churchill rivers respectively. The lieutenant-
governor of Manitoba is, ex officio, lieutenant-governor of
Keewatin. (J-WH*-)
Kehl, a river port of Germany, grand duchy of
Baden, standing on the Rhine, opposite to Strasburg, and
30 miles by rail south-west of the town of Baden. Here
was opened in 1900 a harbour, 11,480 feet long and 330
feet wide, with an easy entrance. It is protected from
the Rhine by a dyke 26 feet high (above Rhine low
water), and cost some £425,000. A second basin is to
be added. Population (1900), 3003.
Kei Islands, a group in the Malay Archipelago,
belonging to the residency of Amboyna, lying between
5° and 6° 5/ S. and 131 50 and 133 15 E., and
consisting of four parts : Nuhu-Iut or Great Kei, Roa or
Little Kei, the Tayanda, and the Kur group. Great
Kei differs geologically in every respect from the other
groups. It is of Tertiary formation (Miocene), and its
mountain-chain of stone, running in the direction of its
longitudinal axis, has peaks such as Boo, Daap, &c., reach¬
ing a height of 2600 feet. All the other groups are of post-
Tertiary formation and of level surface, hardly relieved by
any heights. According to Professor Martin, the frontier
of the islands, detached as they are from the Asiatic
continent on the one hand and the Australian continent
on the other, runs between (a) Great Kei and the north¬
west of Timor and (b) the western isles of the Kei group.
Among the products of the islands are copra, maize, yams,
and tobacco. Planten estimates the population at about
23,000, of whom 14,900 are pagans, 8300 Mahommedans,
and about 22 Christians. Area, 572 square miles.
See Kan. “ Onze geographische kennis der Keij-Eilanden,” in
Tijdschr. Aardr. Gen., 1887.—Martin, “Die Kei-inseln u. ihr
Verhaltniss zur Australisch-Asiatischen Grenzlinie,” in ibid., part
vii., 1890.—Van Hoevell, “De Kei-Eilanden,” in Tijdschr. Bat.
Gen., 1889 ; “Verslagen van de wetenschappelijke opnemingen
en onderzoekingen op de Keij-Eilanden,” 1889-90, by Planten
and Wertheim, 1893, with map and ethnographical atlas of the
south-western and south-eastern islands by Pleyte.
Keighley, a municipal borough (incorporated 1882,
extended 1895) in the Keighley parliamentary division of
Yorkshire, England, on the Aire, 9 miles north-west of Brad¬
ford by rail. By the Leeds and Liverpool canal the town
is connected with Hull and Liverpool. A grammar-school
was founded in 1713, the operations of which have been
extended so as to embrace a trade school (1871) for boys
and a grammar-school for girls. The Public Libraries
Acts have been adopted. There are a hospital and con¬
siderable charities, and also three public pleasure-grounds.
The principal industries are manufactures of woollen goods,
spinning, sewing, and washing machines, and tools. Popu¬
lation (1891), 35,012; (1901), 41,565.
Keith, a police burgh and important railway
junction of Banffshire, Scotland, on the river Isla, 53^
miles north-west of Aberdeen. There are a public hall, a
hospital, and an institute and museum. Keith is the
centre of the agricultural trade of Banffshire; there are
manure and lime works, and tweed and blanket factories;
an extensive dead meat trade is conducted. The public
school has a secondary department. Population (1881),
4339; (1901), 4753.
Kekule, Friedrich August (1829-1896),
German chemist, was born at Darmstadt on 7th Septem¬
ber 1829. He was intended to adopt the profession of an
architect, and it was while he was studying at Giessen, in
furtherance of that design, that he came under the in¬
fluence of Liebig and was induced to take up chemistry.
From Giessen he went to Paris, where he attended lectures
by Regnault, Fremy, and Wurtz, and contracted a friend¬
ship with Gerhardt; then, after a short sojourn in Switzer¬
land, he visited England, and became acquainted with the
doctrines of Williamson and Odling. He thus enjoyed
the advantage of personal intercourse with several of the
leading chemical thinkers of the period. On his return to
Germany he started a small chemical laboratory at Heidel¬
berg, where, with a very slender equipment, he carried out
several important researches. In 1858 he was appointed
professor of chemistry at Ghent, and in 1865 was called
to Bonn to fill a similar position, which he held till his
death on 13th June 1896. Kekule’s main importance lies
in the far-reaching contributions which he made to chemi¬
cal theory, especially in regard to the constitution of the
carbon compounds. The doctrine of atomicity had already
been enunciated by Frankland, when in 1858 Kekule
published a paper in which, after giving reasons for regard¬
ing carbon as a tetravalent element, he set forth the
essential features of his famous doctrine of the linking
of atoms. He explained that in substances containing
several carbon atoms it must be assumed that some of the
affinities of each carbon atom are bound by the affinities
of the atoms of other elements contained in the substance,
and some by an equal number of the affinities of the other
carbon atoms. The simplest case is when two carbon atoms
are combined so that one affinity of the one is tied to one
affinity of the other; two, therefore, of the affinities of the
two atoms are occupied in keeping the two atoms to¬
gether, and only the remaining six are available for atoms
of other elements. The next simplest case consists in the
mutual interchange of two affinity units, and so on. This
conception led Kekule to his “ closed-chain ” or “ ring
theory of the constitution of benzene (see Chemistry
in vol. xxvi.), which has been called the “ most brilliant
piece of prediction to be found in the whole range of
organic chemistry,” and this in turn led in particular to
the elucidation of the constitution of the “ aromatic com¬
pounds,” and in general to new methods of chemical
synthesis and decomposition, and to a deeper insight into
the composition of numberless organic bodies and their
mutual relations. Professor F. R. Japp, indeed, went so
far as to say, in the Kekule memorial lecture he delivered
before the London Chemical Society on 15th December
1897, that three-fourths of modern organic chemistry is
directly or indirectly the product of Kekule’s benzene
theory, and that without its guidance and inspiration the
industries of the coal-tar colours and the artificial thera¬
peutic agents in their present form and extension would
have been inconceivable. (H- M- R-)
Keller, Gottfried (1819-1890), German novelist,
was born at Zurich, 19th July 1819. His father, a master
joiner, dying while Gottfried was young, his education was
imperfect, and he wasted much time in trying to learn to
paint. At length interest in politics threw him into litera¬
ture—his talents, first disclosed by some short poems,
obtaining recognition from the government of his native
canton, and he was enabled to go through a regular course
of study at the University of Heidelberg. From 1850
to 1855 he lived at Berlin, where he wrote his most
important novel, Der griine Heinrich (23rd ed. 1901),
remarkable for its delicate autobiographic portraiture and
the beautiful episodes interwoven with the action, and
Die Leute von Seldwyla (27th ed. 1901), studies of Zurich
life, including in Romeo und Julia aus dem Dorfe the most
powerful story of real life ever written in German, and in
Die drei gerechten Kammmacher, almost as great a master-