URI, one of the Forest Cantons of Switzerland, ranks as fourth in the Confederation. It comprises the upper basin of the Reuss from its source to the Lake of Lucerne, the southern arm of which is also within the canton. Its total area is 415∙4 square miles; of these 184∙4 are classed as productive, 40∙3 are covered with forests, 44∙3 consist of glaciers, and 7∙7 of the lake. The highest point in the canton is the Galenstock (11,802 feet). The population in 1880 amounted to 23,694 (men having a majority of 3000 over women), showing an increase of 7649, or 39∙4 per cent., since 1870, owing to the St Gotthard Railway. German is the native tongue of 18,024 persons, Italian of 5313. The canton has always been very strongly Roman Catholic (23,149 in 1880). It was included up to 1814 in the diocese of Constance (except the valley of Urseren, which was in that of Chur), and since then has formed part of no diocese, but is provisionally administered by the bishop of Chur. In Uri the limits of the ecclesiastical parishes are the same as those of the civil communes. The capital is Altdorf (2901 inhabitants). Göschenen (2990) and Wasen (2744) have increased since the opening of the St Gotthard Railway (1880), which runs through the greater part of the canton. The inhabitants are occupied in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, and are very saving and industrious. The main valley is fertile, but the side glens are very wild. Education is still very backward and largely in the hands of the priests; but an improvement was made in 1885. The main characteristics of the people are extreme conservatism and a passionate attachment to their religion....

URIC ACID, as explained fully in the article Nutrition (vol. xvii. p. 683), is one of the penultimate products of the tissue waste in the human body. While the bulk of the nitrogen of the albuminoids passes off through the bladder as Urea (q.v.), a small portion of it stops at the uric acid stage. Human urine contains only a fraction of a per cent. of the acid, chiefly as soda salt; abundance of uric acid is met with in the excrement of serpents and birds, with whom it is the principal nitrogenous product of tissue waste. For the preparation of uric acid (C 5 H 4 N 4 O 3 ), Guano (q.v. ) is boiled repeatedly with a solution of borax in 120 parts of water. The filtered solution is acidified with hydrochloric acid, when impure uric acid separates out as a brown precipitate, which is washed with cold water. For its purification it is dissolved in hot dilute caustic potash or soda ley, the solution filtered, and the filtrate saturated with carbonic acid. An almost insoluble acid urate of alkali separates out, which is collected on a filter, washed, and decomposed by adding it in instalments to hot dilute hydrochloric acid. Uric acid separates out as a white precipitate, which is filtered off, washed, and dried, to be re-purified by a repetition of the alkali process or otherwise. Pure uric acid forms a snow-white microcrystalline powder, devoid of smell or taste, soluble in 1800 parts of boiling and in 14,000 parts of cold water, but insoluble in alcohol and in ether. When heated it suffers complete decomposition....

AND THUMMIM. The high priests of the Jews, we are told, consulted God in the most important affairs of their commonwealth, and received answers by the Urim and Thummim. What these were, is disputed among the critics. Josephus, and some others, imagine the answer was returned by the stones of the breastplate appearing with an unusual lustre when it was favourable, or in the contrary case dim. Others suppose, that the Urim and Thummim were something enclosed between the folding of the breastplate; this some will have to be the tetragrammaton, or the word יהוה _Jehovah_. Christophorus de Castro, and after him Dr. Spencer, maintain them to be two little images shut up in the doubling of the breastplate, which gave the oracular answer from thence by an articulate voice. Accordingly, they derive them from the Egyptians, who consulted their _lares_, and had an oracle, or teraphim, which they called Truth. This opinion, however, has been sufficiently confuted by the learned Dr. Pococke and by Witsius. The more common opinion among Christians concerning the oracle by Urim and Thummim, and which Dr. Prideaux espouses, is, that when the high priest appeared before the veil, clothed with his ephod and breastplate, to ask counsel of God, the answer was given with an audible voice from the mercy seat, within the veil; but, it has been observed, that this account will by no means agree with the history of David’s consulting the oracle by Abiathar, 1 Sam. xxiii, 9, 11; xxx, 7, 8; because the ark, on which was the mercy seat, was then at Kirjathjearim; whereas David was in the one case at Ziklag, and in the other in the forest of Hareth. Braunius and Hottinger have adopted another opinion: they suppose, that, when Moses is commanded to put in the breastplate the Urim and Thummim, ...

URINE. See Urea and Uric Acid ; also Nutrition, vol. xvii. pp. 682-684.