VYATKA, or VIATKA, a large prov ince in European Russia; area, 59,329 square miles; pop. about 3,700,000, com prising many Tartar tribes and some 50,000 Mohammedans. The products are corn, rye, barley, oats, flax, and hemp. Forests of fir, oak, elm and birch are ex tensive. Before the World War it had manufactures of woolens, linens, potash, leather, copper, firearms, anchors, gun carriages, etc. The capital, of the same name, is a well-built town, containing 17 churches and a cathedral with an altar of solid silver, and is the commercial center of the province.
W, w, the 23d letter of the English alphabet. It takes its form and its name from the union of two V's the character V having formerly the name and force of U. The name "double u" is not, how ever, a very suitable one, being given to the letter from its form of composition, and not from its sound. In the Anglo Saxon alphabet W had a distinctive character of its own, the modern letter being adopted in the 13th century. W represents two sounds: (1) The distinc tive sound properly belonging to it, being that which it has at the beginning of a syllable, and when followed by a vowel, as in was, will, woe, forward, housework, etc.; (2) at the end of syllables, in which
position it is always preceded by a vowel, it has either no force at all (or at most only serves to lengthen the vowel), as in law, paw, grow, lawful, etc.; or it forms the second element in a diphthong, as in few, new, now, vow, etc., being in such cases really a vowel, and equivalent to the u in bough, neutral, etc. It is formed by opening the mouth with a close, circular configuration of the lips, the organs having exactly the same posi tion as they have in pronouncing the oo in foot. W is hence often spoken of as a vowel; but it is not so, as may be seen by comparing woo, wood, and wo man, in which w is not equivalent to oo.
WAAG (vag), a large river of Hun gary, rising in the Carpathian Moun tains, and after a course of 200 miles, joining the Danube at Komorn.